title: Beyblade (manga)

text: Kai, Ray, and Max left Tyson and went their separate ways to rejoin their old teams so that they have a chance to beat each other at the World Championship which has been re-designed with tag-teams of two. Max joins the PPB All Starz, Ray joins White Tiger X, and Kai joins the Blitzkrieg Boys. This leaves only Tyson, Hilary, and Kenny on the team. A new character, Daichi Sumeragi, and Tyson's older brother, Hiro Granger, join them. The two other teams involved are the Barthez Battalion and F-Dynasty.


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: One week after the results of the World Championships, Boris, the secondary villain from the first season, returns and creates the new Beyblade Entertainment Global Association, (BEGA) replacing the BBA. Boris tries to fool Tyson and co. into believing he has made up for his past, while he is actually trying to gain control over all Bladers and Beyblading activity. After a while however, they see what Boris is trying to pull. Tyson challenges BEGA's best to a battle, and Boris decides to hold a 5-on-5 tournament in one month's time. But he declares that all the Beyblade shops must sell Beyblades and their parts to BEGA associated Beybladers only, otherwise they will not be allowed to run the shops.


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: Tyson and the team find some parts at Max's father's store, which are insufficient. Then after sometime Kenny comes with the solution, he makes a new type of Beyblades known as hard metal Beyblades, using a different type of parts. But they still needed one more blader, and that is when Kai, who tried to join BEGA but lost severely to Brooklyn, disbanded the Blitzkrieg Boys and rejoined the team now known as the G Revolutions. Additionally during the BEGA qualifying matches Kai's former teammates, Spencer and Bryan of the Blitzkrieg Boys defeat a BEGA Training squad but lose easily to a mysterious blader known as Garland Siebald. Tala, the leader of the Blitzkrieg Boys who was previously the final boss in season 1, takes on Garland but lost the match and was seriously injured after Garland activated his attack, Radiant Thunder and ended the match. Daichi and Ray lose the first two matches to Ming-Ming and Crusher only proving that their hard metal blades were also no match for their powerful blades. Max ends the third match with Mystel in a draw. Then it is Kai's turn. He chooses unbeaten Brooklyn as his Opponent. Kai defeats Brooklyn in that match. Then Tyson beats Garland. Brooklyn becomes insane due to his loss to Kai and start having nightmares about Kai. After that, he confronts Tyson. In the ensuing match, Tyson and Brooklyn battle it out in the tie-breaker match. As the final fight rages on, Brooklyn goes berserk and merges with his bit-beast Zeus which threatens to destroy the entire universe. in the end Tyson is able to absorb the powers of every single Bit-Beast and after a final attack, Brooklyn became normal while both blades were still spinning (but the match after that was not shown assumed as a draw). And the BEGA corporation had fallen thanks to the efforts of the Bladebreakers (G-Revolutions). The episode ends with Tyson and Kai to have one final match.


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: In the Japanese version, the episode ends with a special ending showing every major character from the series.


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: Kai returns to Japan after completing his studies. Tyson learns of this and tries to meet Kai, but when he reaches there he finds that Kai has left beyblading and is now controlling his grandfather's company. Tyson is shocked to hear this. He understands that Kai is abandoning his passion just to keep his grandpa, Voltaire's will. Tyson makes Kai understand and listen to his inner voice. Voltaire at last understands his mistake and allows Kai to carry on his journey. Tyson challenges Kai for a beybattle. Kai is about to be defeated when he uses his beyblading skills and defeats Tyson. Tyson and others are shocked but he is glad to find his friend back to action.


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: The chapters of the "Beyblade" manga were written and illustrated by Takao Aoki. It was serialized in "CoroCoro Comic" from 1999 to 2004. The manga was licensed for an English-language release by Viz Media.


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: In 2016, Takao Aoki released a sequel manga called featuring the original characters, which is currently ongoing. The series is serialized in "CoroCoro Aniki".


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: The series was adapted in a television anime series produced by Madhouse, making it the studio's first use of digital ink and paint. Spanning 51 episodes, the series aired in Japan on TV Tokyo from January 8, 2001, to December 24, 2001. A sequel series produced by Nihon Animedia titled "Beyblade V-Force" ran for another 51 episodes from January 7, 2002, until December 30, 2002. The third series, "Beyblade G-Revolution", ran for 52 episodes from January 6, 2003, until its conclusion on December 29, 2003.


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: All three seasons were licensed for English adaptation, broadcast, and release by Nelvana. The series was broadcast on the sibling cable channel YTV in Canada and ABC Family in the United States in 2002. Reruns were also seen on Toon Disney, as part of Jetix from 2004–2005, and again in 2006, as part of Jetix's "Anime Invasion Sundays" block. The series was distributed by Geneon Entertainment for its first two seasons and FUNimation Entertainment for the third season. The license for all three seasons were acquired by Discotek Media on November 30, 2018. They released all three on English dub-only standard definition Blu-ray; the first season on January 29, "V-Force" on February 26, and "G-Revolution" on March 26, 2019.


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: Several spin-off series have since been produced, including "", the "BeyWheelz" series, and "Beyblade Burst".


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: A "Deadline Hollywood" piece in May 2015 reported that Paramount Pictures had acquired the rights to make a live action film based on "Beyblade" after the box office success of Hasbro's "Transformers" and "G.I. Joe" film series. The film will be produced by Mary Parent through her Disruption Entertainment banner.


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: Beyblade developed a cult following when the series' popular spinning top toy was launched worldwide. Now with the released fourth season of the "Metal Fight Beyblade" series, "Metal Fight Beyblade Zero-G", aka "Beyblade Shogun Steel", a toy line which consists of Beyblades from the anime including Samurai Ifraid W145CF, MSF Shinobi Saramanda SW145SD, MSF Pirates Orojya 145D, Thief Phoenix E230GCF, Guardian Reviser 160SB, MSF Archer Gryph C145S, Pirates Killerken A230JSB, and many more are being released in Asia.


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: "Beyblade, Let It Rip! The Official Album" was released in the UK to coincide with the show's popularity. It featured the anime's opening theme, as well as songs by artists including Nickelback and Busted. In Germany the Album "Beyblade V-Force" was released. Like the UK Album it featured the Opening song and other songs by artists like Noel Pix or Petra Scheeser (Wind). It was produced by Arts of Toyco.


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: Originally developed and manufactured by Takara Tomy, first released in 2000. The toys include a 'launcher' – a device for bringing the spinning top up to speed in a plastic arena known as a Beystadium, with a slightly dished base, where they subsequently strike each other. The last top still spinning wins. Beyblade is largely a game of power and angle, although many players believe a particular launch style can influence the outcome of a game. Later on, Hasbro started to make beyblade spinning tops too.


title: Beyblade (manga)

text: Common Sense Media described the series as a "formulaic toy-inspired series [that] has some good messages." Don Houston of DVD Talk wrote, "The show is just one long repetitive commercial, and not a well made commercial at that."


title: Joe Swash

text: Joseph Adam Swash is an English actor and television presenter, best known for his role of Mickey Miller in the BBC One soap opera "EastEnders" and various presenting roles with ITV2. He won the eighth series of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" in 2008 and the twelfth series of "Dancing on Ice" in 2020.


title: Joe Swash

text: When Swash was seven, he made his first television appearance in an Andrex advertisement. In 1991 when he was 9 years old he played the role of a little boy pretending to be an orphan in "You Rang M'Lord?" then when he was eleven he was cast in the film "The Adventures of Pinocchio", as The Fighting boy with Dawn French and Griff Rhys Jones and co-starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Richard Claxton and Correy Carrier. His character, known as Fighting Boy because he scuffled with Lampwick over a gun, was turned into a donkey after going on a Roller Coaster. He made minor appearances in several television series such as "Casualty", "The South Bank Show", "The Bill", "Soldier Soldier" and Nickelodeon's "LOL: Laugh Out Loud". In 2002, Joe Swash appeared as a participant in the ITV documentary "Club Reps".


title: Joe Swash

text: Swash was about to give up on the idea of becoming an actor when he gained a role in BBC One soap opera "EastEnders". He was cast as Mickey Miller and made his first appearance in "EastEnders" in April 2003 as a recurring character. Owing to a positive viewer reception, producer Louise Berridge turned Mickey into a regular character, and his on-screen family arrived a year later, including Mickey's little sister Demi, played by Swash's real sister, Shana. His son, Harry Swash, also appeared in the soap as his niece Summer Swann for a minimal period. On 26 February 2008, it was announced that Joe Swash, along with the actor who plays his stepfather, David Spinx, were being written out of "EastEnders" in a "big explosive storyline". He made his final appearance in July 2008. Since the announcement of his departure, Swash has been critical of the direction producers took with his character. He has blamed his three-month screen absence in 2005 on Mickey becoming little more than "light-relief".


title: Joe Swash

text: However, he has expressed an interest in returning. He later reprised his role of Mickey Miller for two episodes on 19 and 20 September 2011, in order to coincide with his on screen brother's departure from the soap.


title: Joe Swash

text: In November 2008, Swash entered the Australian jungle to appear in the eighth series of the British reality show "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!", which he went on to win.


title: Joe Swash

text: From 2009 onwards, Swash has been part of the presenting team on the spin-off series "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here, NOW!". He co-presented the show with Caroline Flack (2009–2010), Russell Kane (2009–2011), Laura Whitmore (2011–2015), Rob Beckett (2012–2014) and David Morgan (2015).


title: Joe Swash

text: In 2016, the show was renamed "". Swash has co-presented this show with Vicky Pattison (2016), Stacey Solomon (2016), Chris Ramsey (2016), Joel Dommett (2017–2018) and Scarlett Moffatt (2017–2018). On 20 July 2019, it was confirmed that Swash had left the show and would not return for the series that year.


title: Joe Swash

text: In January 2020, Swash appeared as a contestant on the twelfth series of "Dancing on Ice". Swash was partnered with Alexandra Schauman from week 1 until she sustained an injury in week 3. He was re-partnered with Alex Murphy in week 4. Swash and Murphy went on to win the series, beating Perri Kiely and his partner Vanessa Bauer.


title: Joe Swash

text: In 2009, Swash, along with ex-rugby player Austin Healey, appeared in the second series of "Hole in the Wall", as a team captain.


title: Joe Swash

text: In 2011, Swash presented the children's show "Gimme A Break" on the CBBC Channel. In 2011, Swash and Caroline Flack worked on ITV2 game show "Minute to Win It" as team captains. In November 2011 "Driving Academy" aired on the CBBC Channel, with Swash as presenter/narrator. In 2014, a brand new series was aired with celebrities taking part called "Celebrity Driving Academy".


title: Joe Swash

text: In 2013 and 2014, Swash was a regular team captain on ITV2 panel show "Fake Reaction". In 2016, he joined the line-up on "The Jump" as a contestant.


title: Joe Swash

text: Swash subsequently performed as Buttons in the pantomime "Cinderella", at the Central Theatre in Chatham, Medway.


title: Joe Swash

text: In February 2009, Swash and TV presenter Tim Vincent broke a Guinness World Record for throwing the most pancakes to a partner as part of a challenge on Channel 4's "The Paul O'Grady Show".


title: Joe Swash

text: Swash was forced to take a three-month break from "EastEnders" in 2005 after he contracted meningoencephalitis.


title: Joe Swash

text: On 16 June 2007, Swash's fiancée, Emma Sophocleous, gave birth to their first child, a boy. On 19 January 2008, it was announced the couple had separated. On 3 November 2009, Swash was declared bankrupt by London's High Court after failing to pay a £20,000 tax bill. Swash's agent Becca Barr said it was a mix-up and the actor was not in financial difficulty.


title: Joe Swash

text: Swash started dating Stacey Solomon in January 2016, after meeting on "I'm a Celebrity" several years previously. In 2019, the two announced that they were expecting their first child together, joining their family of Swash's son and Solomon's two sons. In May 2019, Solomon gave birth to their first child together, a boy named Rex.


title: Joe Swash

text: Swash and Solomon got engaged on 24 December 2020, after being together for five years. In July 2021 the pair announced they were expecting a baby girl. On 5 October 2021 Stacey announced on Instagram that the baby, Rose, had been born. On 24 July 2022 they were married in a small ceremony held at their home, Pickle Cottage, in Essex.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American lyrical poet and playwright. Millay was a renowned social figure and noted feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. She wrote much of her prose and hackwork verse under the pseudonym Nancy Boyd.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Millay won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her poem ""; she was the first woman and second person to win the award. In 1943, Millay was the sixth person and the second woman to be awarded the Frost Medal for her lifetime contribution to American poetry.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Millay was highly regarded during much of her lifetime, with the prominent literary critic Edmund Wilson calling her "one of the only poets writing in English in our time who have attained to anything like the stature of great literary figures.<nowiki>"</nowiki> By the 1930s, her critical reputation began to decline, as modernist critics dismissed her works for its use of traditional poetic forms and subject matter, in contrast to modernism's exhortation to "make it new." However, the rise of feminist literary criticism in the 1960s and 1970s revived an interest in Millay's works.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Millay was born in Rockland, Maine, on February 22, 1892. Her parents were Cora Lounella Buzelle, a nurse, and Henry Tolman Millay, a schoolteacher who would later become a superintendent of schools. Her middle name derives from St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City, where her uncle's life had been saved just before her birth. Encouraged to read the classics at home, she was too rebellious to make a success of formal education, but she won poetry prizes from an early age.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Edna's mother attended a Congregational church. In 1904, Cora officially divorced Millay's father for financial irresponsibility and domestic abuse, but they had already been separated for some years. Henry and Edna kept a letter correspondence for many years, but he never re-entered the family. Cora and her three daughters – Edna (who called herself "Vincent"), Norma Lounella, and Kathleen Kalloch (born 1896) – moved from town to town, living in poverty and surviving various illnesses. Cora travelled with a trunk full of classic literature, including Shakespeare and Milton, which she read to her children. The family settled in a small house on the property of Cora's aunt in Camden, Maine, where Millay would write the first of the poems that would bring her literary fame. The family's house in Camden was "between the mountains and the sea where baskets of apples and drying herbs on the porch mingled their scents with those of the neighboring pine woods."


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: The three sisters were independent and spoke their minds, which did not always sit well with the authority figures in their lives. Millay's grade school principal, offended by her frank attitudes, refused to call her Vincent. Instead, he called her by any woman's name that started with a V. At Camden High School, Millay began developing her literary talents, starting at the school's literary magazine, "The Megunticook". At 14, she won the "St. Nicholas" Gold Badge for poetry, and by 15, she had published her poetry in the popular children's magazine "St. Nicholas", the "Camden Herald", and the high-profile anthology "Current Literature".


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Millay's fame began in 1912 when, at the age of 20, she entered her poem "Renascence" in a poetry contest in "The Lyric Year". The backer of the contest, Ferdinand P. Earle, chose Millay as the winner after sorting through thousands of entries, reading only two lines apiece. Earle sent a letter informing Millay of her win before consulting with the other judges, who had previously and separately agreed on a criterion for a winner to winnow down the massive flood of entrants. According to the remaining judges, the winning poem had to exhibit social relevance and "Renascence" did not. The entry of Orrick Glenday Johns, "Second Avenue," was about the "squalid scenes" Johns saw on Eldridge Street and lower Second Avenue on New York's Lower East Side. Millay placed ultimately fourth.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Controversy in newspaper columns and editorial pages launched the careers of both Millay and Johns. Johns received hate mail, so he expressed that he felt her poem was the better one and avoided the awards banquet. He stated that "the award was as much an embarrassment to me as a triumph." Additionally, the second-prize winner offered Millay his $250 prize money. In the immediate aftermath of the "Lyric Year" controversy, wealthy arts patron Caroline B. Dow heard Millay reciting her poetry and playing the piano at the Whitehall Inn in Camden, Maine, and was so impressed that she offered to pay for Millay's education at Vassar College.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Millay entered Vassar College in 1913 at age 21, later than is typical. Her attendance at Vassar, which she called a "hell-hole", became a strain to her due to its strict nature. Before she attended the college, Millay had a liberal home life that included smoking, drinking, playing gin rummy, and flirting with men. Vassar, on the other hand, expected its students to be refined and live according to their status as young ladies. Millay often wouldn't be formally reprimanded out of respect of her work. At the end of her senior year in 1917, the faculty voted to suspend Millay indefinitely; however, in response to a petition by her peers, she was allowed to graduate. She was a prominent campus writer, becoming a regular contributor to "The Vassar Miscellany". She had relationships with many fellow students during her time there and kept scrapbooks including drafts of plays written during the period. While at school, she had several romantic relationships with women, including Edith Wynne Matthison, who would go on to become an actress in silent films.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: After her graduation from Vassar in 1917, Millay moved to New York City. She lived in Greenwich Village just as it was becoming known as a bohemian writer's haven. She resided in a number of places, including a house owned by the Cherry Lane Theatre and 75½ Bedford Street, renowned for being the narrowest in New York City.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: While in New York City, Millay was openly bisexual, developing passing relationships with both men and women. The critic Floyd Dell wrote that Millay was "a frivolous young woman, with a brand-new pair of dancing slippers and a mouth like a valentine." She maintained relationships with "The Masses-"editor Floyd Dell and critic Edmund Wilson, both of whom proposed marriage to her and were refused. Counted among Millay's close friends were the writers Witter Bynner, Arthur Davison Ficke, and Susan Glaspell.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: In 1919, she wrote the anti-war play "Aria da Capo", which starred her sister Norma Millay at the Provincetown Playhouse in New York City. In 1921, Millay would write "The Lamp and the Bell," her first verse drama, at the request of the drama department of Vassar. While establishing her career as a poet, Millay initially worked with the Provincetown Players on Macdougal Street and the Theatre Guild. In 1924, Millay and others founded the Cherry Lane Theatre "to continue the staging of experimental drama."


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: During her stay in Greenwich Village, Millay learned to use her poetry for her feminist activism. She often went into detail about topics others found taboo, such as a wife leaving her husband in the middle of the night. Millay's 1920 collection "A Few Figs From Thistles" drew controversy for its exploration of female sexuality and feminism. She engaged in highly successful nationwide tours in which she offered public readings of her poetry.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: To support her days in the Village, Millay wrote short stories for "Ainslee's Magazine". As an aesthete and a canny protector of her identity as a poet, she insisted on publishing this more mass-appeal work under the pseudonym Nancy Boyd.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: In January 1921, Millay traveled to Paris, where she met and befriended the sculptors Thelma Wood and Constantin Brâncuși, photographer Man Ray, had affairs with journalists George Slocombe and John Carter, and became pregnant by a man named Daubigny. She secured a marriage license but instead returned to New England where her mother Cora helped induce an abortion with alkanet, as recommended in her old copy of Culpeper's "Complete Herbal". Possibly as a result, Millay was frequently ill and weak for much of the next four years.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Millay won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923 for "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver." She was the first woman to win the poetry prize, though two women (Sara Teasdale in 1918 and Margaret Widdemer in 1919) won special prizes for their poetry prior to the establishment of the award. In 1924, literary critic Harriet Monroe labeled Millay “the greatest woman poet since Sappho."


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: After experiencing his remarkable attention to her during her illness, she married 43-year-old Eugen Jan Boissevain in 1923. Boissevain was the widower of labor lawyer and war correspondent Inez Milholland, a political icon Millay had met during her time at Vassar. A self-proclaimed feminist, Boissevain supported Millay's career and took primary care of domestic responsibilities. Both Millay and Boissevain had other lovers throughout their 26-year marriage. For Millay, one such significant relationship was with the poet George Dillon, a student 14 years her junior, whom she met in 1928 at one of her readings at the University of Chicago. Their relationship inspired the sonnets in the collection "Fatal Interview", which she published in 1931.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: In 1925, Boissevain and Millay bought Steepletop near Austerlitz, New York, which had once been a blueberry farm. They built a barn (from a Sears Roebuck kit), and then a writing cabin and a tennis court. Millay grew her own vegetables in a small garden. Later, they bought Ragged Island in Casco Bay, Maine, as a summer retreat. Frequently having trouble with the servants they employed, Millay wrote, "The only people I really hate are servants. They are not really human beings at all."


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Millay was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera House to write a libretto for an opera composed by Deems Taylor. The result, "The King's Henchman", drew on the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's" account of Eadgar, King of Wessex. The opera began its production in 1927 to high praise; "The New York Times" described it as "the most effectively and artistically wrought American opera that has reached the stage."


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: In August 1927, Millay, along with a number of other writers, was arrested for protesting the impending executions of the Italian American anarchist duo Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Due to her status, she was able to meet with the governor of Massachusetts, Alvan T. Fuller, to plead for a retrial. Her failure to prevent the executions would be a catalyst for her politicization in her later works, beginning with the poem "Justice Denied In Massachusetts" about the case.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Millay was staying at the Sanibel Palms Hotel when, on May 2, 1936, a fire started after a kerosene heater on the second floor exploded. Everything was destroyed, including the only copy of Millay’s long verse poem, "Conversation at Midnight", and a 1600s poetry collection written by the Roman poet Catullus of the first century BC. She would go on to rewrite "Conversation at Midnight" from memory and release it the following year.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: In the summer of 1936, Millay was riding in a station wagon when the door suddenly swung open, and Millay “was hurled out into the pitch-darkness...and rolled for some distance down a rocky gully." The accident severely damaged nerves in her spine, requiring frequent surgeries and hospitalizations, and at least daily doses of morphine. Millay lived the rest of her life in "constant pain".


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Despite her accident, Millay was sufficiently alarmed by the rise of fascism to write against it. During World War I, she had been a dedicated and active pacifist; however, in 1940, she advocated for the U.S. to enter the war against the Axis and became an ardent supporter of the war effort. She later worked with the Writers' War Board to create propaganda, including poetry. Millay's reputation in poetry circles was damaged by her war work. Merle Rubin noted, "She seems to have caught more flak from the literary critics for supporting democracy than Ezra Pound did for championing fascism."


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: In 1942 in "The New York Times Magazine", Millay mourned the destruction of the Czech village Lidice. Nazi forces had razed Lidice, slaughtered its male inhabitants and scattered its surviving residents in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Millay wrote: "The whole world holds in its arms today / The murdered village of Lidice, / Like the murdered body of a little child." This article would serve as the basis of her 32-page work "Murder of Lidice," published by Harper and Brothers in 1942. The poem loosely served as the basis of the 1943 MGM movie "Hitler's Madman".


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Millay was critical of capitalism and sympathetic to socialist ideals, which she labeled as "of a free and equal society", but she did not identify as a communist. She told Grace Hamilton King in 1941 that she had been "almost a fellow-traveller with the communist idea as far as it went along with the socialist idea."


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Despite the excellent sales of her books in the 1930s, her declining reputation, constant medical bills, and frequent demands from her mentally ill sister Kathleen meant that for most of her last years, Millay was in debt to her own publisher. Author Daniel Mark Epstein also concludes from her correspondence that Millay developed a passion for thoroughbred horse-racing, and spent much of her income investing in a racing stable of which she had quietly become an owner.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Although her work and reputation declined during the war years, possibly due to a morphine addiction she acquired following her accident, she subsequently sought treatment for it and was successfully rehabilitated. Boissevain died in 1949 of lung cancer, leaving Millay to live alone for the last year of her life. Her final collection of poems was published posthumously as the volume "Mine the Harvest." The title sonnet recalls her career:


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Millay died at her home on October 19, 1950, at age 58. She had fallen down the stairs and was found with a broken neck approximately eight hours after her death. Her physician reported that she had suffered a heart attack following a coronary occlusion. She is buried alongside her husband at Steepletop, Austerlitz, New York.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: After her death, "The New York Times" described her as "an idol of the younger generation during the glorious early days of Greenwich Village" and as "one of the greatest American poets of her time." Thomas Hardy said that America had two great attractions: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The poet Richard Wilbur asserted that Millay "wrote some of the best sonnets of the century."


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: A "New York Times" review of Milford noted that "readers of poetry probably dismiss Millay as mediocre," and noted that within 20 years of Millay's death, "the public was impatient with what had come to seem a poised, genteel emotionalism." However, it concludes that "readers should come away from Milford's book with their understanding of Millay deepened and charged." The New York Review of Books called Milford's biography "the story of the life that eclipsed the work," and dismissed much of Millay's work as "soggy" and "doggerel."


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Nancy Milford published a biography of the poet in 2001, "Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St Vincent Millay." Millay's sister, Norma Millay (then her only living relative), offered Milford access to the poet's papers based on her successful biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife, "Zelda". Milford also edited and wrote an introduction for a collection of Millay's poems called "The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay." Milford would label Millay as "the herald of the New Woman."


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Millay's sister Norma and her husband, the painter and actor Charles Frederick Ellis, moved to Steepletop after Millay's death. In 1973, they established the Millay Colony for the Arts on seven acres near the house and barn. After the death of her husband in 1976, Norma continued to run the program until her death in 1986. At 17, the poet Mary Oliver visited Steepletop and became a close friend of Norma. She would later live at Steepletop off-and-on for seven years and helped to organize Millay's papers. Mary Oliver herself went on to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, greatly inspired by Millay's work. In 2006, the state of New York paid $1.69 million to acquire of Steepletop, to add the land to a nearby state forest preserve. The proceeds of the sale were used by the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society to restore the farmhouse and grounds and turn it into a museum. The museum opened to the public in the summer of 2010. Conservation of the house has been ongoing.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Conservation of Millay's birthplace began in 2015 with the purchase of the double-house at 198–200 Broadway, Rockland, Maine. Built in 1891, Henry T. and Cora B. Millay were the first tenants of the north side, where Cora gave birth to her first of three daughters during a February 1892 squall. Identified as the Singhi Double House, the home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019 not as the poet's birthplace, but as a "good example" of the "modest double houses" that made up almost 10% of residences in the largely working-class city between 1837 and the early 1900s. When fully restored by 2023, half the house will be dedicated to honoring Millay's legacy with workshops and classes, while the other half will be rented for income to sustain conservation and programs. A writer-in-residence will be funded by the Ellis Beauregard Foundation and the Millay House Rockland.Millay is also memorialized in Camden, Maine, where she lived beginning in 1900. A statue of the poet stands in Harbor Park, which shares with Mt. Battie the view of Penobscot Bay that opens "Renascence", the poem that launched Millay's career. Camden Public Library also shares Mt. Battie's view. It has the first couplets of "Renascence" inscribed along the perimeter of a large skylight: "All I could see from where I stood / Was three long mountains and a wood; / I turned and looked another way, / And saw three islands in a bay." The library's Walsh History Center collection contains the scrapbooks created by Millay’s high-school friend, Corinne Sawyer, as well as photos, letters, newspaper clippings, and other ephemera.


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: Millay has been referenced in popular culture, and her work has been the inspiration for music and drama:


title: Edna St. Vincent Millay

text: "" (1922) is an homage to the geometry of Euclid. "Renascence" and "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver" are considered her finest poems.


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: "It's a Good Life" is the 8th episode of the third season of the American television series "The Twilight Zone", and the 73rd overall. It is based on the 1953 short story "It's a "Good" Life" by Jerome Bixby and is considered by some, such as "Time" and "TV Guide", to be one of the best episodes of the series. It originally aired on November 3, 1961.


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: Six-year-old Anthony Fremont has godlike mental powers, including mind-reading. He has isolated his town of Peaksville, Ohio, from the rest of the universe. The people must thus grow their own food, and supplies of common household items, such as bar soap, have been dwindling. He has blocked television signals and caused cars not to work. He creates horrible creatures, such as three-headed gophers, which he then kills. Everybody is under his rule, even his parents. The people live in fear of him, constantly telling him how everything he does is "good", since he banishes anyone thinking unhappy thoughts into the otherworldly cornfield from which there is no return. Never having experienced any form of discipline, Anthony does not even understand that his actions are wrong, and is confused when his father tells him that the neighbors are reluctant to let their children play with him after he sent several of his playmates to the cornfield.


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: One night each week, Anthony gives the townsfolk one hour of television, which he creates and projects onto the family TV set. The adults gather around in the Fremonts' living room, squirming uncomfortably as Anthony shows them a vision of screaming dinosaurs, engaged in a gory battle. Unable to voice their real feelings, they tell Anthony that it was far better than what used to be on TV.


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: After the program is over, the adults celebrate Dan Hollis's birthday. He gets two presents from his wife: a bottle of brandy (which is one of only five bottles of liquor left in the village) and a Perry Como record. Dan is eager to listen to the record, but he's reminded by everyone that Anthony does not like singing. Getting drunk from the brandy, he starts complaining about the miserable state of the town, not being able to listen to the record, and no one singing "Happy Birthday" to him. Dan snaps and confronts the child, calling him a monster and a murderer. While Anthony's anger grows, Dan yells for someone to attack Anthony from behind and end his reign of terror. Aunt Amy (who isn't able to sing anymore because of Anthony) tentatively reaches for a fireplace poker, but no one has the courage to act. Anthony transforms Dan into a jack-in-the-box, causing his wife to break down. The adults are horrified at what Anthony has done, and his father asks him to wish Dan into the cornfield, which Anthony does.


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: He then causes snow to begin falling outside. The snow will kill off at least half the crops and the town will face starvation. Anthony's father starts to rebuke Anthony about this, but his wife and the other adults look on with worried smiles on their faces. The father then smiles and tells Anthony in a terrified voice, "...But it's good you're making it snow. A real good thing. And tomorrow... tomorrow's gonna be a... real "good" day!"


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: "Time" named this the third-best "Twilight Zone" episode, behind "Time Enough at Last" and "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street".


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: Rod Serling's introduction at the beginning of this episode was recycled and digitally edited for the preshow of the Disney Parks attraction The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. In the preshow video, Serling stands in front of a service elevator door, rather than a map of the United States, and explains to guests the journey they are about to experience. The attraction, which first opened at Disney-MGM Studios in 1994, almost two decades after Serling's death, is an homage to the original series with an original story based on it. When conceiving the attraction, Disney Imagineers wanted to include Serling in the attraction and opted for a voice artist to play him; Mark Silverman was chosen by Serling's widow to provide his voice. A poster advertising "Anthony Fremont's Orchestra" is displayed next to the concierge desk in the lobby of the attraction, an ironic reference to Anthony's hate for music.


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: The opening narration of this episode is sampled in "Threatened" by Michael Jackson in his 2001 album, "Invincible".


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: In a 1974 interview with Marvel Comics, Rod Serling said "I'm on my third draft of a feature film based on Jerome Bixby's short story, 'It's a Good Life'. We did it originally on "Twilight Zone" but now we're doing a full-length version. Alan Landsburg, who produced "Chariots of the Gods", is producing it. It's in the fantasy-horror genre." This was one of Serling's last interviews before his death in 1975.


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: In "The Omen" series, the Antichrist as a child has supernatural powers similar to the main character.


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: The 1980 song "Cemetery Girls" by novelty rock group Barnes & Barnes refers to the episode in its lyrics ("Fresh souls in the cornfield...Anthony put them there..."), and with samples of lines. Since the album was released several years before fictional twin brothers Art (Bill Mumy) Barnes and Artie (Robert Haimer) went "public" about their identities, the reference is somewhat of an in-joke.


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: This episode is evoked in "The Regulators", a 1996 novel by Stephen King writing under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, in which an alien entity with psychic powers possesses young Seth Garin and uses his abilities to kill Seth's parents, terrorizes the folks that subsequently take Seth in, and isolates the suburban street on which they live from the rest of the world while turning it into a child's version of the Old West.


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: The 1997 episode "Johnny Real Good" from "Johnny Bravo" is also based on this episode. Johnny has to babysit a boy named Timmy, who also has supernatural powers and sends Johnny several times to a nearby cornfield for "thinking bad thoughts."


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: The 2007 Pulitzer Prize winning novel "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" uses the episode as an analogy for life under the dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: The on-line virtual world Second Life has a "region of mythological status where once naughty avatars were sent to think about what they had done" called "The Cornfield".


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: In the 2002 revival series, a sequel to this episode was broadcast, titled "It's Still a Good Life". In the episode, Anthony is a middle-aged man who now has a daughter Audrey who has inherited his powers. Bill Mumy and Cloris Leachman reprised their roles from the original episode. Anthony Fremont's daughter, Audrey, is played by actor Bill Mumy's real-life daughter Liliana Mumy.


title: It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

text: A commercial for Me-TV airing on that channel in 2015 features an adult Bill Mumy as adult Anthony intercut with scenes from the original episode, apparently interacting as the adult Anthony uses his powers to beam Me-TV to little Anthony's set. In early 2017, the network used clips from this episode in promos for the show's late-night reruns.


title: Production of The Lord of the Rings film series

text: The production of "The Lord of the Rings" film series under Peter Jackson's direction was an enormous challenge, starting in 1997 and ending in 2004. Many earlier attempts had failed; most that had reached the screen were animations, and many filmmakers and producers had considered how to achieve the task and then set it aside. The series as realized consists of three epic fantasy adventure films based on J. R. R. Tolkien's eponymous novel. They were produced by New Line Cinema, assisted by WingNut Films; the cinema versions appeared between 2001 and 2003, and the extended edition for home video in 2004. Development began in August 1997. The three films were shot simultaneously, entirely in Jackson's native New Zealand, from October 1999 until December 2000, with pick-up shots from 2001 to 2003.


text: Storyboarding began in 1997; the Tolkien illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe worked as conceptual artists throughout the project, Lee mainly on architecture, Howe on characters such as Gandalf and the Balrog. Extensive sets were built, including the village of Hobbiton. Weta Workshop created armour, weapons, prosthetics, creatures and miniatures. Some of the miniatures, such as of the city of Minas Tirith, were very large and extremely detailed, becoming known as "bigatures". The work was driven by Jackson's desire for realism, to give the effect of history rather than fantasy. Animals were studied to make the creatures biologically believable; weapons and armour were based on appropriate medieval or classical era peoples. Some 48,000 pieces of armour, 10,000 arrows, 500 bows, 10,000 Orc heads, 1,800 pairs of Hobbit feet serving as shoes, and 19,000 costumes were created for the filming.


text: The composer Howard Shore saw the set in August 2000 and watched the assembly cuts of the first two films. He created around 100 leitmotifs to represent themes (such as the Ring), cultures, and characters, a record in the history of cinema, resulting in a long, complex and award-winning film score.


text: Special effects broke new ground in filmmaking, from prosthetics to almost wholly digitally-realized creatures such as Gollum. The Hobbits are represented as 107 cm tall, and the Dwarves as 137 cm tall, requiring sets both at normal scale for Men and Elves, and at larger scale for Hobbits and Dwarves — these were able to use the same scale of sets by virtue of the casting of shorter actors for Hobbits, taller actors for Dwarves. Monsters such as trolls, the Watcher in the Water, the Balrog, and the Ents were created entirely with computer-generated imagery, requiring months of design work from sketches to maquettes and finally computer work. Many scenes were created by filming natural scenery or miniatures, and combining these images with those of actors on a green-screen studio set.


text: Tolkien's novels "The Hobbit" (1937) and "The Lord of the Rings" (1954–55), set in Middle-earth, were the subject of many early failed attempts to bring the fictional universe to life in screen. Tolkien was skeptical of the prospects of an adaptation. While animated and live-action shorts were made in 1967 and 1971, the first commercial depiction of one of his books onscreen was in an animated TV special of "The Hobbit" in 1977. In 1978 the first big screen adaptation of the fictional setting was introduced in Ralph Bakshi's animated "The Lord of the Rings".


text: The rights to adapt Tolkien's works passed through the hands of several studios, having been briefly leased to Rembrandt films before being sold perpetually to United Artists, who then passed them in part to Saul Zaentz (which did business as Middle-earth Enterprises). Filmmakers and producers interested in an adaptation included Walt Disney, Al Brodax, Forrest J Ackerman, Samuel Gelfman, Denis O'Dell (who contacted David Lean, Stanley Kubrick and Michelangelo Antonioni to direct), and Heinz Edelmann.


text: At the time that Bakshi's film was released, a teenaged Peter Jackson had not read the book, and went to see the film: "I liked the early part – it had some quaint sequences in Hobbiton, a creepy encounter with the Black Rider on the road, and a few quite good battle scenes – but then, about half way through, the storytelling became very disjointed and disorientating and I really didn't understand what was going on. However, what it did do was to make me want to read the book – if only to find out what happened!" He then read the book, thinking it would make for a great live-action film. He assumed that Disney or filmmakers like George Lucas or Steven Spielberg would eventually produce one for him to see, but realized it would have been impossible to adapt at the time. An amateur filmmaker, he soon tried making original fantasy films inspired by "Jason and the Argonauts" and "Conan the Barbarian". He did not revisit the books until 1997, thinking that he would be out of his depth to adapt them.


text: In 1995, Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh were finishing "The Frighteners" and considered doing an original high-fantasy film to keep their special effects company in business. With the new developments in computer-generated imagery following 1993's "Jurassic Park", Jackson set about planning a ""Lord of the Rings"-type of story" but whenever he and Walsh tried conceiving of a story, they ended with something so similar to Tolkien's books as to be considered derivative. Jackson began wondering "why nobody else seemed to be doing anything about" adapting Tolkien to live-action, and at his request, his agent Ken Kamins tracked the rights to Saul Zaentz.


text: Since "Heavenly Creatures", Jackson was in a contract with Miramax. While he and his lawyer were unsure whether he was contractually obligated to bring his pitch to Miramax first, Jackson decided to do so out of courtesy, only to realize upon calling Harvey Weinstein that he had recently rescued Zaentz' production of "The English Patient", and could therefore leverage the rights from him. Jackson realized it would take multiple films to adapt the books properly, but pitched a single trilogy: one film based on "The Hobbit" and, if that were to prove successful, a two-part adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings", shot back-to-back and released six months apart.


text: Negotiations with Zaentz were elongated due to Weinstein's intention to keep Zaentz from producing the film himself, and by the fact that the distribution rights for "The Hobbit" were left in United Artists' hands. Miramax tried to buy the rights from the studio in vain. By April 1996, Jackson had reread "The Hobbit" and commissioned WETA to produce concept art, when Weinstein suggested postponing it to a potential prequel.


text: Weinstein's dalliance led Jackson to take up an offer from Universal Studios to film a remake of "King Kong." Weinstein was furious, but Jackson still intended to make "The Lord of the Rings" immediately afterwards, and had the book to hand, re-reading the prologue. Indeed, he suggested that Miramax and Universal co-distribute both films, to which Weinstein agreed once Universal threw "Shakespeare in Love" into the deal, as well.


text: When Universal cancelled "King Kong" in 1997, Jackson and Walsh immediately received support from Weinstein and began a six-week process of sorting out the rights. Jackson and Walsh asked Costa Botes to write a scene-by-scene synopsis of the book, which Jackson then rearranged as the basis for his screen treatment. They also consulted Tolkien's letters and some academic writing done on his works.


text: Immediately after "King Kong"'s cancelation, Jackson clarified to Weinstein that he still intended to make two films, but concerns expressed by Miramax led him to try and write the treatment as a single film, "but by the time we had got to the end, it was clear that we were talking about two films." At the story conference in Miramax (during which the Bakshi cartoon was screened), the Weinsteins "blanched" but accepted this. While writing the treatment, Jackson considered doing three films and "shaped our treatment into three parts" before Miramax rejected the idea.


text: Between the synopsis and the treatment, Jackson decided to cut Gildor, Crickhollow, the Old Forest, Tom Bombadil, the Barrow Wights, Bill Ferney, Radagast, Lothlorien and Ghan-Buri-Ghan. The final treatment divides the story into two parts: "The Fellowship of the Ring" (which covered the eponymous novel but also "The Two Towers") and "The War of the Ring." The first opens immediately with the Battle of the Last Alliance (in what Jackson called a "James Bond" opening) and ends with Saruman's death, and Gandalf and Pippin (the latter having looked into the Palantir) going to Minas Tirith.


text: In this treatment, Farmer Maggot and Glorfindel are present; Gwaihir and Gandalf visit Edoras after escaping Saruman, and Eowyn and Eomer help him find Shadowfax against the wishes of a possessed Theoden. Gollum attacks Frodo when the Fellowship is still united, a struggle during which the Ring falls into the mud and is picked up by Boromir. Bilbo attends the Council of Elrond and Sam looks into Galadriel's mirror. At the end of the film, Saruman is shot by an overhead Nazgûl and, before his death, is redeemed through issuing the Palantir for Gandalf to look into. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are sent south to espy Sauron's forces, and Frodo and Sam are en route to the Black Gate.


text: The second film opens in the thick of battle, and ends with Frodo sailing to the West. It features a more pronounced romantic triangle with Arwen and Eowyn, including a scene of Aragorn and Eowyn "asleep in each other's arms"; and has Elladan, Elrohir and Erkenbrand join Aragorn on the Paths of the Dead (the latter dying in the process), which are described as though made of flesh. The Nazgul just make it into Mount Doom before they fall.


text: They presented this treatment to Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the latter of whom they focused on impressing with their screenwriting, as he had not read the book. They agreed upon two films and a total budget of $75 million.


text: Early discussions of casting were held, with Miramax wanting to "americanize" the project, and suggesting star names like Daniel Day-Lewis for Aragorn (starting "fanciful internet speculation" that Lewis was allegedly approached for the part several times) and even suggested Morgan Freeman for Gandalf. Harvey had also dissuaded Jackson from considering Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd, whom Harvey had secretly harassed just previous to this time. Jackson compiled his own casting wishlist, which included Ian Holm for Bilbo Baggins and Cate Blanchett for Galadriel.


text: Meanwhile, WETA Digital developed the "MASSIVE" software and WETA Workshop began conceptual design for the films. Having used their paintings for inspiration (to the point of showing them in story conferences) Jackson suggested hiring Alan Lee and John Howe. Miramax didn't want to involve Lee, due to his association with Tolkien's Estate, but Jackson tracked the reclusive Lee through Michael Palin and convinced him and Howe to join the project. Howe, who previously mailed Lee and spoke to him on the phone once, met him on the plane. Howe also brought along a collection of recreated Medieval armour for reference. A third artist, Ted Nasmith, was invited to join later, but had to decline. Ralph Bakshi also claimed Jackson's company bought many of his designs.


text: During mid-1997, Jackson and Walsh began writing with Stephen Sinclair. Sinclair's partner, Philippa Boyens, was a major fan of the book and joined the writing team after reading their treatment. It took 13 to 14 months to write the two film scripts, which were 147 and 144 pages respectively. Sinclair left the project due to theatrical obligations.


text: In this version, Farmer Maggot and Fatty Bolger appear. Gandalf is more frail and has given up pipe-smoking, and Gimli's dialogue contains several vulgarities. Sam, Merry and Pippin are all caught eavesdropping behind the door and forced to go along with Frodo. The Nazgul skewer Barliman Butterbur and Wargs attack the Hobbits near Weathertop. Gandalf's account of his time at Orthanc was pulled out of flashback and Lothlórien was cut, with Galadriel doing what she does in the story at Rivendell. Denethor attends the Council of Elrond with his son. The Watcher in the Water, absent from the treatment, is reinstated. Arwen now rescues Frodo instead of Glorfindel, and later joins the battle of Helm's Deep, where a Nazgul sweeps in, only for its fell beast slain by Gimli. Indeed, Theoden's palace is placed in Helm's Deep itself. While on the Seat of Seeing, Frodo sees the Nazgul, having killed Saruman, attack Gandalf. He puts on the Ring to draw him away and is attacked by a fell-beast, which Sam lassos to the structure. The Nazgul attacks Sam before Frodo kills it.


text: The second script included a sex scene between Aragorn and Arwen in the Glittering Pools, interrupted by Legolas and Gimli's sight-seeing the caves. Arwen later fends off a Nazgul that menaces Pippin and joins the Rohirrim. The writers also considered having Arwen absorb Éowyn's role entirely by having her kill the Witch-king, with the resulting wound becoming the source of her illness. Faramir finds Frodo after Denethor sends him to do so, having learned the secret of the quest from Pippin. Imrahil and Forlong appear in the script, and Aragorn fights Sauron in front of the Black Gates.


text: Writing the scripts, Jackson and Miramax drew a 110-day schedule for production, beginning in April 1999 for release in Christmas 2000 and Memorial Day 2001. In so doing, they were able to budget the films better, with Miramax becoming increasingly worried and asking for cost-cutting rewrites such as killing one of the four Hobbits, and sent producers to oversee the work done in New Zealand. Eventually, Marty Katz arrived to New Zealand. Spending four months there, he told Miramax that the films were more likely to cost $150 million; which was beyond Miramax' abilities.


text: Being a Disney-owned company, Miramax went to chairman Joe Roth, who went to CEO Michael Eisner with a request to aid Miramax on budgeting the production. Eisner had recently demanded cost-cutting measures, and declined. Walsh said this was due to lack of faith in the property and concern over Jackson's proclivity to make violent films, although Eisner later claimed that he only refused because Harvey Weinstein refused to let him review the project or meet Jackson. Instead, Miramax looked for other studios like DreamWorks to join, but were again unsuccessful, and instead suggested merging the films into one.


text: Bob Weinstein commissioned Jack Lechner to sketch a one-film version of the story. Lechner saw the story as too "dense" and that any two-film version would have left audiences unfulfilled since the story was only "half-told". He thought Frodo was a weak character. On 17 June 1998, he sent a memo in which he suggested cutting Bree and the Battle of Helm's Deep, "losing or using" Saruman, merging Rohan and Gondor, and making Éowyn Boromir's sister, shortening Rivendell and Moria (losing the Balrog and the fight in Balin's Tomb in the process) as well as having Ents prevent the Uruk-hai from kidnapping Merry and Pippin. Miramax drafted a schedule for production of this version.


text: Jackson agreed that "As an exercise in reducing "The Lord of the Rings" to one film, it demonstrated a lot of common sense", but was upset by the idea of "cutting out half the good stuff." In the following meeting, he tried to convince Harvey Weinstein to make the first film on-budget and then make the second film, and later suggested making a one-film version under the proviso that it would be four hours long. Weinstein refused, insisting on telling the whole story in a two-hour film. Jackson balked, and Miramax declared that any script or work completed by Weta Workshop was theirs, and that they would commission Hossein Amini to rewrite the script with Walsh. In fact, they had already sent the two-film script to Amini who "loved it". When Jackson and Walsh refused to co-operate, Weinstein said he had John Madden ready to direct it. In a later phone-call to Jackson's agent, Harvey instead mentioned Quentin Tarantino. Jackson and Amini both believe this was a bluff to get Jackson to agree to make one film.


text: Jackson's agent later clarified to Weinstein that, should he hire other filmmakers, he could not use Jackson's scripts or designs as a basis (which would compound the cost), and that he would be better off putting the project on a turnaround, which Miramax only begrudgingly agreed to. Hoping that Jackson could be forced to make the one-film version, Miramax dictated draconian conditions for the turnaround, limiting it to four weeks. They further demanded that the other studio repay their investment and give them 5% of the revenue of the films: half for themselves, and half for Disney.


text: Jackson made a 35-minute "making of" video to sell the project, and had the scripts sent to various studios. Jackson wanted to go to New Line Cinema, where his friend Mark Ordesky was an executive. Knowing Ordesky was a fan of the books, Jackson called him with the proposition. Meanwhile, all the other studios passed. Centropolis and Sony disliked the script, while 20th Century Fox declined due to Zaentz's involvement. Polygram were interested but were in the process of being sold to Universal. The other studios did not review the scripts.


text: A fan of the books, New Line CEO Robert Shaye was enthusiastic about the concept ever since he heard Miramax landed it, but initially refused Mark's inquiry on account of the percentage that the Weinsteins demanded. Eventually, however, due to New Line's need for lucrative franchises, he was convinced to meet Jackson. He was still unsure, however, but Jackson feigned being busy talking to other studios to give Shaye the impression that he was "in a more competitive situation than he truly was."


text: Shaye had run the prospect by his head of international distribution, who said he could shore-up most of the investment from foreign distributors. He was still unsure about Jackson himself, and talked to him before the meeting, telling him that he did not like "The Frighteners" and that "The Lord of the Rings" is "probably something that we're not going to want to do." However, after viewing the video, he asked "Why would anyone want movie-goers to pay $18 when they might pay $27?". Eventually Jackson caught along that Shaye wanted to make three films, to which he responded enthusiastically. Shaye later explained he had already discussed making three films – should he decide to take the project – with his partner Michael Lynn, and went on to comment that he "would have made five if there were five books." He talked about whether they should be released within a month, two years or three.


text: Now Jackson, Walsh and Boyens had to write three new scripts. The expansion to three films allowed much more creative freedom, although Jackson, Walsh and Boyens had to restructure their script accordingly. The three films do not correspond exactly to the trilogy's three volumes, but rather represent a three-part adaptation. Jackson takes a more chronological approach to the story than did Tolkien. Frodo's quest is the main focus, and Aragorn is the main sub-plot. The filmmakers also consulted Tolkien's biography, letters and scholarly books written on his works. They spoke with Tolkien's Estate, who decided to distance themselves from the films.


text: In one iteration, the film would have opened "in medias res" with Frodo and Sam near the borders of the Shire. Farmer Maggot had a bigger role than in the finished film, and Merry and Pippin only join the quest later. Arwen follows the Fellowship to Lorien, and later rejoins them in Rohan after she rescues two refugee children from the Orcs, delivering them to Helm's Deep where a love triangle develops with Eowyn, who delivers a child while fending off Orcs in the Glittering Caves. This culminates in her riding to war with Eowyn, who saves her from the Witch-King.


text: Many sequences, such as Tom Bombadil, that do not contribute directly to those two plots were left out, although Jackson considered re-incorporating Bombadil by having the Hobbits see his hat across the bush, as well as trying to edit the finished film to suggest that the Bombadil incident happened offscreen. The writers also considered adding the Battle of Dale into "The Return of the King". While he couldn't incorporate the Hunt for Gollum, he toyed with the idea of shooting it after the fact and inserting it into the extended edition, should the film prove a success.


text: Much effort was put into creating satisfactory conclusions and making sure exposition did not bog down the pacing. Along with new sequences, there are also expansions on elements Tolkien kept ambiguous, such as the battles and the creatures. During shooting, the screenplays continued to evolve, in part due to contributions from cast members looking to further explore their characters.


text: "The Lord of the Rings" film series began production design in August 1997. Peter Jackson required complete realism and plausibility in his vision of Middle-earth, and hired Weta Workshop to create the various pieces of armour, weapons, prosthetics and creatures seen in the trilogy, as well as aged costumes and genuinely weathered sets.


text: Jackson began storyboarding the trilogy with Christian Rivers in August 1997, effectively creating a rough black and white 2-D version of the film. Jackson showed excerpts of the "animated" storyboards (filmed images with voices and a temporary soundtrack) to allow potential cast a view of the film's style.


text: To plan his visual effects sequences, Jackson also utilized a lipstick camera for the models of sets and computer animatics (learned from Industrial Light & Magic), planning the battle sequences like a real general and giving a sense of direction. This often allowed room for him to improvise action sequences, such as the Moria staircase collapse (which was never in any script draft). He also bought 40,000 toy soldiers to play with. Pre-visualisation would continue throughout production, such as the late addition of the Ents attacking Isengard, and the siege of Minas Tirith in February 2003.


text: The design of the trilogy began in August 1997 during storyboarding. Jackson himself wanted a gritty realism and historical regard for the fantasy, repeatedly citing the 1995 historical epic "Braveheart" as a good example:


text: In November 1997, the Tolkien illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe joined the project. Up until then, concept artists had primarily been influenced by "Dungeons & Dragons" in their designs. Some of their famous images of Bag End, Orthanc, Helm's Deep, the Black Gate, and Howe's Gandalf and the Balrog made it into the film. The last one inspired the opening sequence of "The Two Towers". Jackson sometimes replicated some shots from famous Tolkien illustrations as a nod to fans.


text: Lee worked on designs for architecture, the first being Helm's Deep, as well as the Elven realms, Moria, Edoras, and Minas Tirith, and although Howe primarily designed armour and the forces of evil (see below), he contributed to the design of Bag End, Minas Morgul, Cirith Ungol and Barad-dûr. Lee also applied a personal touch by painted imagery in Rivendell, such as the one of Isildur removing the One Ring from Sauron, as well as tapestries in Edoras. There are many real-life influences on the Middle-earth seen in the films: Rivendell is "a cross between a Japanese Temple and Frank Lloyd Wright", and Minas Tirith takes influence from Mont Saint-Michel and the Palatine Chapel in Aachen. The City of the Dead takes stylistic inspiration from Petra, Jordan, and the Grey Havens were inspired by the paintings of J. M. W. Turner.


text: Grant Major was charged with the task of converting Lee and Howe's designs into architecture, creating models of the sets, whilst Dan Hennah worked as art director, scouting locations and organizing the building of sets. The army often helped out, too, building Hobbiton almost a year before filming to give the impression of real growth and age, moving of earth, and creating roads to the Edoras location during six months of building, although there was some controversy over their pay. Sometimes sets would be reshaped: the caverns of Isengard became Shelob's Lair, and Helm's Deep became a Minas Tirith backlot. Sets would also occasionally employ forced perspective to save budget. Despite a large amount of safety involved, there were still fires on a Rohirrim village location and the Morgul Road set, and Alan Lee fell off a Lothlórien miniature. During Bilbo's birthday party speech, the polystyrene birthday cake with 111 (not confirmed if there really were 111) candles was actually on fire, but everyone kept acting while some of the crew tried to put it out. A similar instance of things occurring that were not in the script was Ian McKellen knocking his head painfully on a beam inside Bag End, but he kept acting through it (though the actor says he improvised it and did it intentionally).


text: The Art Department was careful to respect nature, considering its importance to Tolkien, such as taking plants from the Edoras location into a nursery. They would sometimes mould shapes from real rocks and bark, too, and take branches into a steel structure with polystyrene for more convincing prop trees. Brian Massey led the Greens Department, and even wrote a booklet on tree growth when he complained of the props "being too coney" for Lothlórien when the time came to film Fangorn Forest. The numerous props within the trilogy were all originally designed at different scales, and many craftsmen were hired, most notably Jens Hansen Gold & Silversmith to create 15 replicas of The One Ring.


text: Contemporary jeweller Jasmine Watson created other significant pieces of jewellery, including the Evenstar worn by Arwen, and Nenya, the ring worn by Galadriel. Statues were sculpted out of polystyrene, although some thrones seen in the trilogy are in fact crafted out of marble, stone and wood. A former bank worker named Daniel Reeve was hired to write the numerous books, spines, documents, maps, diagrams and even Orc graffiti that appear in the trilogy.


text: Jackson hired longtime collaborator Richard Taylor to lead Weta Workshop on five major design elements: armour, weapons, prosthetics/make-up, creatures and miniatures. Notable among the concept artists were Daniel Falconer and Warren Mahy, who enjoyed creating the forces of good and evil respectively. Jamie Beswarick and Mike Asquith helped with the maquettes, as did Ben Wooten with his extensive zoology knowledge.


text: John Howe was the supervisor on armour, having studied and worn it. Stu Johnson and Warren Green made 48,000 pieces of armour from the numerous moulds of plate steel. A small group of crew members spent three years linking plastic chain mail, eventually wearing their thumbprints away. Peter Lyon forged swords, each taking from three to six days, with spring steel "hero" swords for close-ups, aluminum fight swords and rubber versions. Weta created 10,000 real arrows and 500 bows. Howe even created a less crude type of crossbow, intended for the Uruk-hai while requiring no external tools to rearm, based on a 16th-century manuscript.


text: Weta created numerous pieces of prosthetics and continually monitored them on set. They created 1,800 Orc body suits to go with 10,000 Orc heads, taking six days and one day respectively. Weta spent a year creating hobbit feet that would look like large, furry feet yet act as shoes for the actors. In total, 1,800 pairs were used by the four lead hobbit actors during production. Actors went in for face casts to create pointed ears and false noses. Most extensive was John Rhys-Davies as Gimli, whose Dwarven prosthetics required four-and-a-half hours to apply each morning. Gino Acevedo worked on realistic skin tones for the actors, such as Bernard Hill's possessed Théoden and a younger Bilbo. Peter King and Peter Owen led the make-up department in making numerous wigs and creating general dirt on the actors. At the end of each day, an hour was spent carefully removing the make-up and prosthetics. Numerous corpses of actors and horses were made.


text: Weta's first completed creature was the cave troll. Production designers wanted to make the Orcs totally animalistic before the switch to prosthetics. They gave specific designs to the Moria Orcs, Uruk-hai, and Mordor Orcs, so as to make these characters visually distinct. They sought to make their creatures biologically believable: Shelob's body is based on an Australasian funnel-web spider, while the Wargs are a bear/hyena/wolf hybrid. Howe lent himself for Beswarick to study when shaping Gollum; Beswarick took inspiration from Iggy Pop due to his skin-muscle ratio. Whilst most creatures were destined to exist in the computer, Weta did create a Treebeard puppet (which needed five people to operate it), a single dead "mûmak" and, later on, a "Phoney Pony" for close-up shots of riding actors. Design continued throughout production; Gollum was redesigned in May 2001, while the Great Beasts were reworked in early 2003.


text: The backstories of the cultures depicted in the films had to be shown through subliminal glimpses on screen, while for the Elves and Gondorians, fictional histories were presented by changing styles of armour. The Elves have an Art Nouveau influence that involves leaves and flowers, while the Dwarves have a preoccupation with geometry intended to remind the audience of their digging nature. The Hobbits hark back to 18th-century England, the Rohirrim feature horse and sun motifs with visual inspiration from Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon artifacts found in the Sutton Hoo burial ship, and the Gondorians reflect 16th-century German and Italian armour and the motif of the White Tree. The evil Haradrim Men take influence from Aztecs and Kiribati after bad feedback from Phillipa Boyens over looking African. Most of the Orc armour is sharp, reflecting secateurs, and is written with runes to reflect worship of Sauron.


text: Several liberties were taken in adapting Tolkien's weaponry and armour to the screen. While plate armour is used in the films, it is unmentioned in the author's writings (except for vambraces), where scale and especially mail predominate. Some swords, like the broken royal sword Narsil, are interpreted as two-handed longswords. These design choices help evoke the Late Medieval and Renaissance periods, whereas Tolkien's original atmosphere is generally more akin to the Early Medieval period. In a private letter, Tolkien compared Middle-earth clothing and war gear to that of Dark Age Europe and the Bayeux Tapestry. Weta also invented Elvish inscriptions for weapons like the spear Aeglos and the swords Sting and Narsil. In some cases, Tolkien writes about runes on sword blades but does not give them in detail. The Elves in the film series use curved swords, whereas the author mostly assigns such swords to Orcs and enemy Men (he mentions one Elf with a curved sword in very early writings). The designers went so far as to invent new weapons, such as Arwen's Elvish sword "Hadhafang"; while the design is original, the name is derived from Tolkien's "Etymologies" in "The Lost Road".


text: To develop fight and sword choreography for the series, the filmmakers employed Hollywood sword-master Bob Anderson. Anderson worked directly with the actors, including Viggo Mortensen and Karl Urban, to develop the film's many sword fights and stunts. Anderson's role is highlighted in the 2009 film "Reclaiming the Blade".


text: Ngila Dickson was hired on 1 April 1999 to handle the numerous costumes. She and 40 seamstresses worked on over 19,000 costumes for the film series. Due to the large shooting schedule, 10 versions of each costume were made, with 30 more for stunt, scale and other doubles, all in all meaning each design had 40 versions.


text: Due to Jackson's requirement of realism, the costumers took great pains to make costumes look "lived in", wearing away colour, stuffing pockets and dirtying costumes for the likes of Gandalf and Aragorn due to their terrain-crossing nature. As with armour, there was also acid etching and some overdyeing of colours. Dickson decided to give the Hobbits shorts due to their bare feet, and specifically worked on long sleeves for the Elves for a gliding impression. Dickson took great pains to distinguish the colours worn by the Gondorians (silver and black) and the Rohirrim (brown and green).


text: Elijah Wood, who portrayed Frodo, revealed in 2021 that one of the Orcs was designed to resemble Harvey Weinstein.


text: Principal photography for "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy was conducted concurrently in New Zealand for 438 days from 11 October 1999 through 22 December 2000. Pick-up shoots were conducted annually from 2001 to 2003. The trilogy was shot at over 150 different locations, with seven different units shooting, as well as at soundstages around Wellington and Queenstown. Jackson directed the whole production, while other unit directors included Alun Bollinger, John Mahaffie, Geoff Murphy, Fran Walsh, Barrie Osborne and Rick Porras. Jackson monitored these units with live satellite feeds, and with the added pressure of constant script re-writes and the multiple units handling his vision, he only got around four hours of sleep a night.


text: Jackson described the production as the world's largest home movie, due to the independence and sense of family. Producer Barrie Osborne saw it as a travelling circus. Fran Walsh described writing the script for the production as laying the track down in front of a moving train. Jackson also described shooting as like organizing an army, with 2,400 people involved at the height of production. Due to the remoteness of some of New Zealand's untamed landscapes, the crew carried survival kits in case helicopters could not reach the locations to bring them home in time.


text: The first scene filmed was the "Wooded Road" sequence in "The Fellowship of the Ring", where the Hobbits hide beneath a tree from a mounted Ringwraith. The focus was generally on "The Fellowship of the Ring" when the Hobbits try to reach Rivendell, such as a single night in Bree exteriors; this was done with the hopes that the four actors playing the hobbits would bond. Second units also shot the Ford of Bruinen chase and the deforestation of Isengard. Liv Tyler generally came to New Zealand for stunts, and spent five days on a barrel for Bruinen while riding double Jane Abbott got to ride on horseback.


text: During the first month of filming, Stuart Townsend was deemed too young to play Aragorn, and within three days Viggo Mortensen became his replacement, just in time to film the Weathertop sequence. Mortensen, who decided to take the role in part because his own son was a fan of the series, became a hit on set, going fishing, always taking his "hero" sword around and applying dirt to his costume to improve costume designer Ngila Dickson's makeshift look. He also headbutted the stunt team as a sign of friendship, and bought himself his horse, Uraeus, as well as another horse for Abbott.


text: The Cirith Ungol stair ledge was built as a wet weather set on a squash court in a hotel in Queenstown. On 24 November 1999, Sean Astin's close-ups on the Cirith Ungol set were shot in what became the first shots to be filmed for "The Return of the King". Andy Serkis (Gollum) had not yet been cast. The set remained standing on the squash court and it was not until a year later, on 30 November 2000, that Elijah Wood's first close-ups were shot on the same ledge. This would become a general failsafe measure if the weather disrupted the shooting schedule. On Wood and the second Cirith Ungol shoot, Peter Jackson stated, "A year later, we were back in the squash court, and this time the heat was on Elijah. He had to get his head back into a scene that had been half-filmed so long ago. He knew that he had to deliver a performance that matched the emotion of Sean's takes, and that he did to perfection".


text: After this scene, when the flood ended, it was during this time that shooting became focused on the battle of Amon Hen. Sean Bean began filming in November for most of his scenes.


text: A Christmas break and Millennium celebrations followed, and filming resumed on 17 January. Ian McKellen, fresh from filming "X-Men", arrived to film scenes in Hobbiton and the Grey Havens. McKellen did not become that close to the lead Hobbit actors, as he generally worked with their scale doubles, but when Christopher Lee arrived in February, they became very friendly. Shooting the fight sequence in the Orthanc interiors, without air conditioning (for atmosphere) but with heavy wigs and robes, was described by the actors as "murder". The Grey Havens sequence, which takes place at the end of "The Return of the King", was shot three times due to Sean Astin forgetting his vest after lunch and, then, an out-of-focus camera.


text: While the Hobbit leads had scenes in Hobbiton interiors and Rivendell exteriors in Kaitoke Park with new arrival Ian Holm, Mortensen, Orlando Bloom and John Rhys-Davies filmed scenes involving the Rohirrim countryside. Mortensen broke his toe kicking an Orc helmet on camera, Bloom fell off his horse and broke a rib, and Rhys-Davies' scale and stunt double Brett Beattie dislocated his knee. They spent two days injured during the "orc hunting" sequence seen in the second film. Soon after, they spent a month of day shoots at Helm's Deep and another three months of night shoots handled by Mahaffie, in Dry Creek Quarry outside Wellington, during which one of Mortensen's teeth was knocked out and Bernard Hill was hit on the ear with the flat of a sword. The extras insulted each other in Māori and improvised stunts, partially because those dressed in Uruk-hai prosthetics got extremely cold.


text: The production then got larger, with Wood and Astin shooting scenes in Mount Ruapehu for Emyn Muil and Mount Doom. On 13 April 2000, Andy Serkis joined the cast. In the meantime, prologue scenes and the Battle of the Black Gate were shot, during which Sala Baker wore the Sauron armour. The Black Gate scene was filmed at a former mine field in the Rangipo Desert, and soldiers served as extras. With the return of Sean Bean, the Fellowship reunited and proceeded to shoot the Moria sequence and the Rivendell interiors, including five days of coverage for the Council of Elrond.


text: In June they began shooting scenes on soundstages with Cate Blanchett for Lothlórien, as well as a week of exterior shooting for the Lothlórien farewell sequence. Other scenes shot in June were the Paths of the Dead across various locations, including Pinnacles. In July the crew shot some Shelob scenes, while another unit shot in July to August, and during September the scenes in Fangorn Forest and Isengard were developed. Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd tried numerous takes of their entrance, stressing the word "weed" as they smoked pipe-weed. Christopher Lee spent his part of his scene mostly alone, though McKellen and Hill arrived on the first day for a few lines to help.


text: Edoras exteriors were shot in October. The Ride of the Rohirrim, where Théoden leads the charge into the Orc army, was filmed in Twizel with 250 extras on horseback. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields makes more use of computer-generated imagery, in contrast to the Battle of Helm's Deep in the second film which relies mainly on live action. Also filmed were scenes in Osgiliath, including attempts by Faramir to retake the city. At this point production was very hectic, with Jackson moving around ten units per day, and production finally wrapped on the Minas Tirith sets, as well as second units shooting parts of the siege.


text: Pick-up shoots were conducted from 2001 to 2003 for six weeks every year to refine each film's edit. For the first two films, the cast and crew often returned to sets; for the third, they had to shoot around the clock in a car park full of set parts. Pick-ups provided a chance for cast and crew to meet in person again, and during "The Two Towers" pick-ups, Sean Astin directed a short film entitled "The Long and Short of It".


text: Notable scenes filmed in the pick-ups include the flashback with Boromir (where he is sent to Rivendell by his father Denethor) featured in "The Two Towers" Extended Edition, as well as the re-shot Witch-king scenes with his new helmet design, the improved Orc designs and the new character of Gothmog, and a re-shoot of Aragorn and Arwen kissing at the coronation scene, all for "The Return of the King". Théoden's last scene was re-shot just after Bernard Hill finished his scenes; Hill was still in New Zealand. Andy Serkis also had to re-shoot a Mount Doom scene in Jackson's house during post-production.


text: The final and only pick-up in 2004 was a series of shots of falling skulls in "The Return of the King" as part of an extended Paths of the Dead scene. Jackson joked that "it's nice to win an Oscar before you've even finished the film".


text: The filming was not without some level of concern over the environmental impact on the many film locations within national parks and conservation areas managed by New Zealand's Department of Conservation. Wingnut Films Limited required and were granted a permit or "concession" from the Department of Conservation to film within these areas. The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand and the Tongariro/Taupo Conservation Board considered the concession questionably processed by the Department of Conservation. The concession permit incorrectly allowed activities, such as fantasy filming and vehicles off-roads at Tongariro National Park, that were not consistent with park management plans. The ecological significance of an internationally important wetland was also ignored. The process was rushed through without public involvement in spite of expressions of concern from the Tongariro/Taupo Conservation Board. Considerations of effects and their mitigation were not rigorous. The process facilitated access to public conservation lands for a large-scale operation that ultimately had nothing to do with the conservation purposes that the Department of Conservation is required to promote.


text: The filming of parts of "Lord of the Rings" in Tongariro National Park caused enough disturbance to some areas of the park, including one known locally as "Orc Road", that contractors had to be hired to restore the areas later. In December 2005, a contractor won an award from the Department of Conservation for their restoration work.


text: Each film had the benefit of a full year of post-production time before its respective December release, often finishing in October or November, with the crew immediately going to work on the next film. In this period's later part, Jackson would move to London to supervise the scoring and to continue editing, while having a computer feed for discussions to The Dorchester Hotel, and a "fat pipe" of Internet connections from Pinewood Studios to look at the special effects. He had a video link and 5.1 surround sound to organize meetings and listen to new music and sound effects generally wherever he was. The extended editions also had a tight schedule at the start of each year to complete special effects and music.


text: Jackson initially intended to have all three films edited at once by himself and editor Jamie Selkirk. This soon proved too ambitious, and Selkirk (who continued to act as the supervising editor) hired a different editor for the first two films: John Gilbert, who worked some reels to be shown to distributors during the shoot, would edit the first film, while Michael J. Horton and Jabez Olssen on the second. Selkirk and Annie Collins edited the third. Initially, they were all intended to cut them simultaneously, but after a month, overseeing three edits became too much for Jackson, and he focused on editing the first film, while the other editors created assemblies of the other films. Daily rushes would often last up to four hours, with scenes being done throughout 1999 to 2002 for the rough (4½-hour) assemblies of the films. In total, of film, representing 1110 hours, was edited down to the 11 hours and 26 minutes) of the extended edition's running time. This was the final area of shaping of the films, when Jackson realized that sometimes the best scripting could be redundant on screen, as he picked apart scenes every day from multiple takes.


text: The first film's editing was relatively easygoing, although after a screening to New Line they had to re-edit the beginning for a prologue. "The Two Towers" was always acknowledged by the crew as the most difficult film to make, as "it had no beginning or end", and had the additional problem of inter-cutting storylines appropriately. Jackson even continued editing the film when that part of the schedule officially ended, resulting in some scenes, including the reforging of Andúril, Gollum's backstory, and Saruman's demise, being moved to "The Return of the King". Later, Saruman's demise was cut from the theatrical edition (but included in the extended edition) when Jackson felt it was not starting the third film effectively enough. As with all parts of the third film's post-production, editing was very chaotic. The first time Jackson actually saw the completed film was at the Wellington premiere.


text: Many filmed scenes remained unused, even in the extended editions. Promotional material for "The Fellowship of the Ring" contained an attack by Orcs from Moria on Lothlórien after the Fellowship leaves Moria, replaced with a more suspenseful entrance for the Fellowship. Also cut were scenes from the book, including Frodo seeing more of Middle-earth at Parth Galen, an extended Council of Elrond and new scenes with an attack upon Frodo and Sam at the river Anduin by an Uruk-hai.


text: A major cut from "The Two Towers" featured Arwen and Elrond visiting Galadriel at Lothlórien, with Arwen then leading the Elven reinforcements to Helm's Deep. This scene, and a flashback to Arwen and Aragorn's first meeting, was cut during a revision of the film's plot; the Elves' appearance was explained with a telepathic communication between Elrond and Galadriel. Éowyn was to have a greater role in defending the refugees in the Glittering Caves from Uruk-hai intruders, while in Osgiliath, Faramir was to have a vision of Frodo becoming like Gollum, with Frodo and Sam having an extended fight sequence.


text: Filmed for "The Return of the King" were two scenes present in the book: Sam using the Phial of Galadriel to pass the Watchers at Cirith Ungol, and further epilogue footage, with endings for Legolas and Gimli, Éowyn and Faramir's wedding and Aragorn's death and funeral. Sauron was to fight Aragorn at the Black Gate, but with Jackson deciding the scene was inappropriate, a computer-generated troll was used instead. To give context for Wormtongue killing Saruman, and Legolas in turn killing Wormtongue, it was to be revealed that Wormtongue poisoned Théodred. The final scene cut was Aragorn having his armour fitted for the Battle of the Black Gate by the trilogy's armourers, which was the final scene filmed during principal photography. Peter Jackson has stated that he would like to include some of these unused scenes in a future "Ultimate Edition" home video release, also including outtakes.


text: Canadian composer Howard Shore composed, orchestrated, conducted and produced the trilogy's music. He was hired in August 2000 and visited the set, and then watched the assembly cuts of "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Return of the King". In the music, Shore included many (85 to 110) leitmotifs to represent various characters, cultures, and places – the largest catalogue of leitmotifs in the history of cinema, surpassing that of the entire "Star Wars" film series. For example, there are multiple leitmotifs just for the hobbits and the Shire. Although the first film had some of its score recorded in Wellington, virtually all of the trilogy's score was recorded in Watford Town Hall and mixed at Abbey Road Studios. Jackson planned to advise the score for six weeks each year in London, though for "The Two Towers" he stayed for twelve. As a Beatles fan, Jackson had a photo tribute done there on the zebra crossing.


text: The score is primarily played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (ranging from 93 to 120 players throughout the recording), London Voices, and London Oratory School Schola boy choir; many other artists, such as Ben Del Maestro, Enya, Renée Fleming, James Galway, Annie Lennox and Emilíana Torrini, contributed. Even actors Billy Boyd, Viggo Mortensen, Liv Tyler, Miranda Otto (extended cuts only for the latter two) and Peter Jackson (for a single gong sound in the second film) contributed to the score. Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens served as librettists, writing lyrics to various music and songs, which David Salo translated into Tolkien's languages. The third film's end song, "Into the West", was a tribute to a young filmmaker Jackson and Walsh befriended named Cameron Duncan, who died of cancer in 2003.


text: Shore composed a main theme for "The Fellowship of the Ring" rather than many different character themes, and its strengths and weaknesses in volume are depicted at different points in the series. On top of that, individual themes were composed to represent different cultures. Infamously, the amount of music Shore had to write every day for the third film increased dramatically to around seven minutes. The music for the series turned out to be a success and has been voted best movie soundtrack of all time for the six years running, passing "Schindler's List" (1993), "Gladiator" (2000), "Star Wars" (1977), and "Out of Africa" (1985) respectively.


text: Sound technicians spent the early part of each year trying to find the right sounds. Some, such as animal sounds like those of tigers and walruses, were bought. Human voices were also used. Fran Walsh contributed to the Nazgûl scream and David Farmer the Warg howls. Other sounds were unexpected: the fell beast's screech is taken from that of a donkey, and the mûmakil's bellow comes from the beginning and end of a lion's roar. In addition, automated dialogue replacement was used for most of the dialogue.


text: The technicians worked with New Zealand locals to get many of the sounds. They re-recorded sounds in abandoned tunnels for an echo-like effect in the Moria sequence. 20,000 New Zealand cricket fans provided the sound of the Uruk-hai army in "The Two Towers", with Jackson acting as conductor during the innings break of a one-day international cricket match between England and New Zealand at Westpac Stadium. They spent time recording sounds in a graveyard at night, and also had construction workers drop stone blocks for the sounds of boulders firing and landing in "The Return of the King". Mixing took place between August and November at "The Film Mix", before Jackson commissioned the building of a new studio in 2003. The building, however, had not yet been fully completed when they started mixing for "The Return of the King".


text: "The Lord of the Rings" film series used many groundbreaking practical and digital visual effects that were unheard of in the film industry. Ranging from prosthetics and props to creatures almost entirely made through computer graphics, the process of making the film series has been praised as having forged a breakthrough in the world of cinematic visual effects. Weta Workshop was the major stylistic force behind the films, working on concepts, sets and digital effects years before the first scenes were even shot. The series was also briefly aided by Digital Domain in the first movie. Props, sets, prosthetics and locations were given the utmost concentration and detail to achieve a look that was as realistic as possible.


text: Production was complicated by the use of scale doubles (of sets) and forced perspective on a level never seen before in the film industry. In the Middle-earth storyverse, Hobbits are 3 ft 6 in (107 cm) tall, Dwarves are slightly taller at about 4 ft 6 in (137 cm), and Men and Elves are average human height, about 5 to 6 ft (150 to 180 cm). However, the films used two scale sets instead of three by casting taller than average actors to play Dwarves, then combining Dwarves and Hobbits into one size scale. Elijah Wood is 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) tall in real life, but his character, Frodo Baggins, is only 3 ft 6 in (1.07 m) in height. John Rhys-Davies, who played the Dwarf Gimli, is taller than Wood. Thus in the ending shot of the Council of Elrond scene, when all nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring are standing together, Rhys-Davies and the four Hobbit actors were filmed first. The human-sized characters (Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir and Legolas) were filmed in a second take, and the two shots were composited at different scales to make one image, making the initial Dwarf/Hobbit character shot seem smaller. An unintended advantage of not creating a third scale for Dwarves is that in a scene in which only Dwarves and Hobbits interact, no scale doubles are needed.


text: Large and small scale doubles were used in many other scenes, while entire duplicates of certain sets (including Bag End in Hobbiton) were built at two different scales so that the characters would appear to be the appropriate sizes. At one point in the film, Frodo runs along a corridor in Bag End, followed by Gandalf (played by Ian McKellen). Wood and McKellen were filmed in separate versions of the same corridor, built at two different scales; these two separate shots were then combined to create a shot of the two actors apparently in the same corridor.


text: Forced perspective was also employed, so that it would look as though the short Hobbits were interacting with taller Men and Elves. Surprising the makers of the film, the simple act of kneeling down was used to great effect. Some actors wore oversized costumes to make average-sized actors look small; numerous scale doubles were disguised with costumes (and even latex faces for the Hobbit doubles); close-ups were often avoided, and numerous back shots were used.


text: Weta coined the term "bigature" for the 72 large miniatures produced for the film, in reference to their extreme size. Out of around six of the shooting crews, there was one specifically devoted to filming on the miniatures, working continuously for years until the end of "The Return of the King". Such miniatures include the 1:4 scale for Helm's Deep, which alongside Khazad-dûm and Osgiliath, was one of the first built. Most sets were constructed to allow compositing with the models and matte paintings, and also built in sections to make them easier to travel with, as the miniatures were not built in the studio where they would later be shot. Each of these "bigatures" were required to have an extreme amount of detail, as the cameras were filming within inches of the masterpieces in hopes of using cinematography to make the sets look as realistic as possible. Notable examples include the Argonath, Minas Tirith, the tower and caverns of Isengard, Barad-dûr, the trees of Lothlórien and Fangorn Forest and the Black Gate. Alex Funke led the motion control camera rigs, and John Baster and Mary Maclahlan led the building of the miniatures. The miniatures unit worked more than any other special effects crew, labouring for over 1,000 days.


text: Creatures such as trolls, the Watcher in the Water, the Balrog, the Ents, the fell beasts, the Wargs, the "mûmakil" and Shelob were created entirely with computer-generated imagery. Creatures would spend months of creation and variation as sketches before approved designs were sculpted into five-foot maquettes and scanned into a computer. Animators would then rig skeletons and muscles before animation and final detailed colouring scanned from painted maquettes. Treebeard had a digital face composited upon the original animatronic, which was scanned for the digital model of his longshots.


text: Along with the creatures, Weta created highly realistic digital doubles for many miniature longshots, as well as numerous stunts, most notably for the acrobatic Elf Legolas. These doubles were scanned from having actors perform movements in a motion-capture suit, with additional details created using ZBrush. There are even morphs between the doubles and actors at times. Horses also performed with motion capture points, though horse deaths were represented using keyframe animation.