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I m David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.
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Now when I took my trip back to New Zealand in December last year, I looked around the plane like I usually do, just to see what people were watching on their in-flight entertainment.
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Usually it s a variety of things, we ve all done this.
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Some people are watching rom-coms, others are deep in a thriller, the occasional awkward man watching a sex scene, or plenty of people are just watching Big Bang Theory.
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But I noticed something truly remarkable on this flight to my homeland.
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Nearly everyone seemed to be watching the same thing.
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Legend tells of a ring, created by an ancient evil, that gave its wearer the power to enslave the world.
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That thing was Lord of the Rings.
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So many people on this flight to New Zealand were watching Lord of the Rings, and it reminded me that a lot of people, a lot of Americans from what I could tell, still come to New Zealand in part because they re fuelled by Peter Jackson s famous trilogy released in the early 2000s.
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Here we were, I thought to myself, over two decades later, still thinking about Hobbits and Orcs, Frodo and Gandalf.
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I guess it s not surprising.
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Those three films got 30 Oscar nominations between them and won 17.
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It s fair to say they left a pretty big cultural footprint.
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And as I watched all those people watching Gollum on their tiny airplane screens, I realised that when I landed, I d have to do something very important for Flightless Bird.
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I d need to do an episode on Lord of the Rings.
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I would go to Hobbiton, the set left over from the movies that s still going strong today.
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The Shire is one of New Zealand s biggest tourist attractions, visited by hundreds of thousands of fans every year.
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So, get those hairy feet, precious rings and alfiers ready, because this is the Lord of the Rings episode.
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Five less bird touchdowns in America
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Okay, where do we all stand on Peter Jackson s trilogy of Lord of the Rings films?
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I ve never seen them.
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This is great.
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Never seen them.
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Where were you in life when those movies were coming out?
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And did you feel they were big at the time?
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They were big.
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They were huge.
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I must ve been in high school, maybe end of middle school, high school.
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I mean, most people I know have seen them.
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I was never drawn to that kind of
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Are you not a fantasy gal?
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Genre fantasy.
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You don t do fantasy.
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But I love Harry.
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You do Game of Thrones.
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And I like Game of Thrones.
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It feels like racism.
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See all these New Zealanders making this giant film.
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You ve never seen any of them.
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What about late night scrolling through things on, sort of popped on a bit of Lord of the Rings or accidentally watched some at a friend s house?
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Never.
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Never.
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Okay, Rob, I should note that you are dressed currently.
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Explain yourself.
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I love Lord of the Rings, yeah.
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But tell people, it s an audio show, so tell people what s happening.
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I m dressed like I normally do.
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Rob came in in normal clothing and then slowly stripped off the external layer of jeans and a top to reveal that he s dressed as a little tiny hobbit.
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And for a while, I didn t really notice that you were, you just sort of looked, you suited.
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It was just like, he has an outfit, a little cape on.
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And do you want to tell me about the ring you re wearing around your neck?
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Yeah, I ve got an actual ring that s inscribed, like the movie.
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On a necklace around my neck.
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Does that happen in the movie?
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The ring s a big deal in the movie.
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Can you give me a base?
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I ve got to say something as well.
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I haven t really watched them either.
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Can we do what you both know about it then?
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Yeah, that s actually quite a good idea.
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Lord of the Rings is about a band of hobbits led by Frodo, Elijah Wood, who you ve met on your show.
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And they have to find a ring to save the world.
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There s a little creature
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calls Gollum.
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He has the ring at some point and it makes him go crazy.
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So Elijah Wood has to find Gollum, get the ring off the little guy.
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Sauron is the big bad guy and he is just a big eye in the sky, a big evil looking eye.
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Okay.
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And I think it s about Little Hobbits defeating big evil.
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And Gandalf is a wizard?
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Yes, I ve heard about him.
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Little Hobbit.
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I don t know why there are three of them.
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They re each three hours.
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Right.
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They re famous for having the extended cuts.
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So the extended cuts are more like four hours each.
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And so you ll get people who will marathon these from time to time.
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It s a full journey for them to get the ring.
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How hard can it be to get the ring off golem and then throw it in the fire they have guys coming after them to every time you put it on it calls to the bad guy.
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But he has to throw the ring in this volcano.
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Monica, I m the same as you.
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For whatever reason, I don t gravitate towards fantasy.
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I m not knocking Lord of the Rings, got on it, didn t watch it.
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And that s the other thing, Amazon tried to bring it back.
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It s the most expensive thing they ve ever made.
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And I think the really interesting thing about that, and I have to be careful because it s in New Zealand, I have a lot of friends that worked on it and are in it.
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It didn t take off in nearly the same way.
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The show?
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Yeah, the show.
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I mean, who s saying, did you watch that Lord of the Rings show?
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No one s really talking about it, despite it being the most expensive show ever made.
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And yet these films that Peter Jackson made two decades ago are still being talked about.
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I was looking on the Alamo s website the other day, and they were doing, you know, here s an anniversary screening of The Two Towers.
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So they re still around.
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Is it called The Two Towers?
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There s three of them.
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Okay.
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One of them.
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Maybe I do know more about it than I thought.
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The Two Towers is one of them.
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Second one, yeah?
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The second one.
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Was it before or after?
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9-11.
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It was 2000.
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Well, it s a book.
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It s J.R.R.
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Tolkien.
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But the movie, the movie.
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Yeah, the movie came out in 2002.
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2002, okay.
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So right after.
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I actually never made that association in the cult show.
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But okay, so Rob, just really quickly, how did you become obsessed?
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You just went to the movies, you love the films, what s your relationship?
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In like seventh grade, I read The Hobbit, and that was one of the first books that I really loved.
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And The Hobbit is the prequel to all of this.
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It s Frodo s uncle, Bilbo Baggins.
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Right.
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I should mention that The Hobbit, Peter Jackson, who s obviously an incredibly talented man, he loved that universe so much, he went and made another trilogy called The Hobbit.
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Right.
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Have you seen The Hobbit, Monica?
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Nope.
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It s not up your alley?
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I just haven t ventured into this world at all.
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Okay.
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Well, this is exciting then.
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My hope is that at the end of this episode, we re both going to be so interested that we ll watch it.
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Do you think that?
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I like to think that anyone listening is going to feel the same way and they ll be like, holy shit, I want to be in this world.
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Or rewatch it.
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I want to read them, I want to rewatch.
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I mean, most people have seen, it s bizarre that two out of three of us in here have not seen them.
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Most people have seen them.
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It s sacrilege that I haven t seen them all.
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I feel like, are you doing it on purpose?
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Are you like, is it bucking the system?
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No, I just, I ve watched the first one at some point on TV with ads.
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So it s about six hours, nightmare.
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But I just, I ve watched bits of the others, but never sat down and really given them a go.
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OK, well, look, when I was in New Zealand, I sort of thought I needed a Lord of the Rings because it was comical how many people on the plane were watching Lord of the Rings.
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And I realized that Americans are still coming to New Zealand because of that movie.
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And they re getting hyped by watching.
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It s also a great thing to watch for a 12 hour flight because it pretty much takes up the whole 12 hours if you do the extended cuts of all three films.
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And I just realized New Zealand is on the map for these movies, and so I was like, I ve got to go to the set where this thing was made and just see what happened.
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It s 6.30 in the morning in Auckland, New Zealand, and I ve just been picked up by an American called Matt.
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He s taller than me, and he s one of those Americans who s just very enthusiastic about life.
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Matt moved to New Zealand recently, but he s never come to Hobbiton.
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He s agreed to let me tag along as he experiences it for the very first time.
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What are you expecting?
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What are you thinking?
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I m expecting small holes in hills and tight spaces.
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It s a two-hour drive to Matamata, a small town nestled in the center of the North Island, with a population of just over 9,000 people.
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It used to be mostly well-known for farming and breeding fancy racehorses.
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Then, Hobbiton came along, a film set brought to life so Lord of the Rings fans can feel like they re actually in the Shire.
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As an American in New Zealand, you re sort of doing the reverse of what I do in Flightless Bird.
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You re an American who s come to New Zealand
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Any sort of things stood out to you that you ve found sort of unusual about the way New Zealand does things and either a good or a bad?
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bad way?
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Like what jumps to mind?
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I mean always my answer to that I start with the demeanor of people.
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The lack of abrasiveness from people.
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I find people to be a bit more personable.
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I m less, I don t know, I think that has to do with like less individualistic.
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There s more of like a camaraderie here amongst people.
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Matt and I spent the drive talking about what it s like being an American in New Zealand.
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Like me in America, he finds lots of things different and strange, and is slowly adjusting.
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He spent time working in hospitality, so has had to adjust pretty quickly.
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Do you miss things like tipping?
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Tipping?
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Oh, tipping, like, oh, tipping, like restaurant tipping.
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What other tipping is there?
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Like cow tipping?
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I don t know why my initial thought was cow tipping when you asked about tipping, but here we are talking about cow tipping.
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Maybe it shouldn t be a surprise his mind went to cow tipping.
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During the 70s, it became a bit of an urban myth in America, fuelled even more in the 80s with movies like Tommy Boy and Heathers, which both featured a healthy dose of cow tipping.
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So restaurant tipping, do you miss that?
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I do, but I don t miss the wages.
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I miss the tips because they were hefty, but I ve relied on tips.
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I couldn t rely on a livable wage.
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It s quite refreshing to actually get paid what you should be getting paid and not having to, you know, going into a shift every day and hoping and not knowing if you re going to make money.
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Before we know it, we see a sign for Hobbiton.
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We re pulled off the main motorway.
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We don t have freeways in New Zealand.
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And we re winding down a fairly narrow road surrounded by a lot of grass and a lot of sheep.
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20 minutes of this and we see the main gates of the movie set.
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We ve arrived.
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This is like cliche textbook New Zealand, right?
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Describe what you re seeing right now.
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I m seeing sheep on a hill in Hobbiton.
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It s literally Teletubbyland.
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There are about a hundred sheep staring at us right now.
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The first thing that strikes me at 8.30am in the morning is that Hobbiton is really busy.
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We drive past about five giant tour buses and we re waved through several already full carparks by a guy in a vest.
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This place is packed.
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There were 158 locations used to shoot the Lord of the Rings films in New Zealand and Hobbiton is definitely the most famous.
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You know what I imagine happened?
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I imagine they got the bulldozers in after the movie stopped and then someone who now owns the place goes, wait!
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Don t touch it.
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I ve got an idea.
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Don t fucking touch this.
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Who wants to get rich?
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Picture this.
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Hobbiton.
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And now it s Hobbiton.
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And now that fucker s rich.
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We head towards the front desk to meet up with the big cheese of Hobbiton.
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My name s Shane Forrest and I m General Manager of Tourism out here at Hobbiton Movie Set.
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He loads us into a little van and we set off on the short drive to the Shire.
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We ve been operating out here at Hobbiton Movie Set tours for just over 20 years, about 21 years now.
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So it started in 2002.
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It was originally the remnants left over from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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So Hobbiton for the Lord of the Rings was built just to be here for the duration of filming, which was only a few months and then pulled down.
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But in that time, the first movie hit the cinema and the locals recognised the mountain rangers in the back of the shire in the movie on the big screen, and they realised Hobbiton was on their back doorstep.
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So the Alexander family had people knocking on their door, asking if they could come and have a look around.
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That s how tourism started.
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So yeah, the first eight or so years, it was just through the remnants.
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Cattle Stop.
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That was just through the remnants of Hobbiton.
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But then in 2008, 2009 was the big breakthrough when Sir Peter Jackson came back, said he wanted to rebuild for the Hobbit trilogy.
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The Alexander family said, yep, sounds perfect, but can it be built permanent?
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Sir Peter Jackson said, I was thinking the exact same thing.
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That s when the movie set was built permanently for the Hobbit trilogy and left behind as a little bit of a monument to Middle Earth, which is pretty special for us here in New Zealand.
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So in short, they built Hobbiton for the first Lord of the Rings movie on some guy s farm.
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And the whole thing was going to be torn down afterwards.
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Then the movie came out, got huge, and people started freaking out about Hobbiton.
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So they kept it and started charging people to visit.
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Pretty much like what Matt theorised in our drive here.
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When Peter Jackson decided to make another three movies for the Hobbit trilogy, the set got even fancier, and here we are.
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A private farm, owned by the Alexander family, which also happens to be the Shire.
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One of the most well-known movie sets on the planet.
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We ve just driven through the gates of the Alexander Farm.
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So this is the 1,250 acre farm with 13,000 sheep, 300 Angus beef cattle, still farmed on a daily basis by the Alexander family.
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And it s just a short trip out through this rural New Zealand site to the movie set.
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I mean, this is classic New Zealand, isn t it?
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We ve got an American with me here and he s blown away by the sheep and the landscape.
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Yeah it is, it is really quintessential Kiwi countryside out here, the beautiful rolling green hills.
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While it s not quite as green as it usually is, it s a little bit hotter this time of year, so we do get a little bit dried out in the grass, but still pretty good.
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But the beautiful rolling hills, the scattered tree lines and the mountain ranges you see as we come around this corner, that s the reason they chose this location out here in the heart of the Waikato.
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Shane tells me that as far as tourists go, about 20% are from New Zealand and about 15% are from America.
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Then there s pretty much people from everywhere else.
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He parks up the van and we head towards a gate that leads directly into Hobbiton.
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You enter the same place that Gandalf does in the movie.
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And walking into this place, it does take your breath away.
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It doesn t feel like a ride or an attraction, or even a set.
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You re literally just walking into the Shire.
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This world opens up around you, rolling hills with little hobbit gardens and hobbit houses with hobbit smoke coming out the chimneys.
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It s hard to explain, but it just feels real.
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You must have seen some amazing reactions from mega fans that come in here, like people must lose their shit.
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Yeah, there s people that grow up reading the books and then watch the movies multiple times a year.
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The biggest fan I ve had out here is a gentleman from Germany that came in.
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He walked in, saw Hobbiton in front of him, started hyperventilating and kissing the ground.
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But then he started hyperventilating so much he actually had a nosebleed.
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So we had to take him out of Hobbiton, get him nice and well established and bring him back in again.
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I love that a fan loved it so much he started bleeding.
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There are 44 Hobbit holes across 12 acres of Hobbiton.
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You could easily lose a day in here.
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And they re smart in how they run it in that they purposefully leave the tour group separated out, so you feel like you re here on your own.
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It s not like the Star Wars thing at Disney where you re tripping over people the whole time.
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But as you look around, there s just the little hobbit holes scattered throughout.
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And as we were talking before, you feel like you could see a hobbit around here at any minute.
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There s the clothes hanging up on the lines, which someone was actually employed in the movies to walk from the hobbit hole to the clothesline over and over again.
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So all the tracks got a nice natural flattened look to them.
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So that s part of the process as well, teaching people about how this movie set was created.
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And then the smoking chimneys, which is really nice, basically an open fish smoker.
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There s some wood chips on the inside.
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There s the team that go through in the morning, light those up and just continuously top them up throughout the day.
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But that s really nice as well, we try and engage all the senses out here at Hobbiton, so as you walk through you get the smell of burning wood as well, which make this feel like a real living village.
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I turn to Matt, and while he s not a giant Lord of the Rings fan, his mouth is literally hanging open.
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It s lacking that gimmicky thing.
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It s way more authentic than that.
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SPEAKER_04
It s not a movie set, it s way more immersive than that.
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There s so much detail around us.
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Little hobbit clotheslines and little hobbit clothes.
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Tiny spades and little wheelbarrows.
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I meet up with Josie Keen, who s fiddling with some tiny hobbit books.
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She s the set decorator here at Hobbiton.
1
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I came on a tour seven years ago and I never left.
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No, I m serious.
1
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Like I was on a working holiday and I came on a tour and my tour guide was like, wow, you nerd, you should work here.
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SPEAKER_02
And I was like, oh my gosh, I didn t realize you could just apply for a job.
1
SPEAKER_02
I thought you were kind of just appointed.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
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And that s how I started in the art department.
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I realized that despite being in New Zealand and in the Shire, I m beginning to be outnumbered, outgunned by Americans.
1
SPEAKER_03
Any quirks in New Zealand that you find quite funny compared to America?
1
SPEAKER_03
Have you noticed how the water level in our toilets is way lower than it is in America?
1
SPEAKER_02
I think, honestly, the major difference was the first time I walked in a mall and everyone was barefoot.
1
SPEAKER_02
That was weird.
1
SPEAKER_02
I wouldn t do that in a major American city.
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SPEAKER_03
We love our bare feet.
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Yeah, no, I loved it too.
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I was just kind of discombobulated.
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As we walk along a hobbit path, past multiple hobbit holes, we bump into Kate.
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She s a conductor, making sure the tour groups are in the right place.
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And she s also American.
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And apparently, she was also in one of the Lord of the Rings movies.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was basically hired because of my height.
1
SPEAKER_01
They hired us to be the villagers in the background here.
1
SPEAKER_03
So what movie are you in?
1
SPEAKER_01
I was in The Hobbit, The Battle of the Five Armies.
1
SPEAKER_03
So you were shooting here, how long ago was that?
1
SPEAKER_03
Maybe 2011?
1
SPEAKER_03
So you were here while they were shooting Roaming Round?
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and being a hobbit?
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Yes, they dressed me up and I got to be in the scene where Bilbo had his auction out front.
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They were selling all his furniture.
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I was one of the hobbits at the auction.
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It must be quite surreal because you re sort of still at this place.
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You re in the film but now you re working at this place still.
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Does your reality sometimes get a bit fucked up?
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So am I in the movie?
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Is this real?
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What s real?
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What s not?
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I actually love the experience and the books and the movies so much that I applied for a job here.
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It s not hard getting staff for this place, is it?
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Nope.
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We love our jobs.
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Looking at all the Americans gathered around me, I start to get confused about where I am.
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My worlds are colliding.
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I wonder if it s some kind of honey trap for Americans.
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Drawing them in like Gollum to that ring.
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And I m terrible with accents.
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Where are you from originally?
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I m from Ohio in the States.
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What do you miss from the Midwest?
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Oh, there s a few foods that I will go back and bring with me here.
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But other than that... What food would you sneak back into New Zealand?
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Don t have to sneak.
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It s not illegal.
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It s great.
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Where I am from, we have what they call Cincinnati chili, which they actually add a bit of cocoa to the chili.
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And it s a great addition.
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So I always get that when I bring it here.
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We continue on and enter this big open field.
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I m told this is the party field, where Bilbo had his 111th birthday.
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This is the party tree, which is apparently one of the most famous trees in the world.
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The fact this pine tree was fully grown here a few decades ago is part of the reason Hobbiton is here in the first place.
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When they were scouting the movie, they saw the tree, and were like, lets land there and look at it.
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As we walk on, I hear a rusty old meow, and this old motley cat idles up to us.
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So Pickles, our cat, she was discovered during filming, I believe, when someone was coming into work and saw her on the side of the road in a box.
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So they picked her up and raised her and she entertains tourists.
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She s about 14 now.
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She ll sometimes lead groups or she ll go sit on top of a mailbox where she knows she s gonna be photographed because she s just used to it at this point.
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She s really taken to the fam well, I think, gracefully.
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I pat Pickles, the rescue cat.
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Pickles as in, she was in a pickle.
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And then we keep walking around.
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We go to Bag End, to Bagshot Row.
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This is our second most iconic Hobbit holiday here.
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This is the home of Sam and his wife, Rosie.
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So Sam, of course, spoiler alert, gets his happy lever after at the end of Lord of the Rings, settles into number three Bagshot Row here.
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Now this whole time we ve been walking past all these hobbit holes, their round brightly coloured doors have been shut.
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You can t go inside because there isn t really anything inside.
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This is fake.
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But back in December, they opened a new thing in Hobbiton where they dug deep into the hill and actually built in a whole hobbit house.
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I m a bit scared to say this, but it s basically the perfect house for Monica Padman.
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They excavated the hillside in the Matamata Township.
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They built all the interiors and then down in Wellington, they did all the soft furnishings, the beds, the furniture.
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So there were three builds happening simultaneously, then they came back together, rebuilt it all in one spot so we could make sure the project was finished in nine months.
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And now it s pretty exciting to be able to venture beyond the doors and see how a real Hobbit family would live.
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I m not a giant fan of this particular series, but I m excited to go inside.
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So in a bit, this six foot two Kiwi opens the door of a tiny hobbit hole owned by the Proudfoot family and steps inside.
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Oh, it s exciting stuff.
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Cliffhanger!
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It s as cliffhanging as these episodes get.
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I can t wait to hear about it.
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You would, I mean, we ll get into it, but it s really cool.
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Like it is really neat in there.
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The thing about it, and it s hard to get across in audio, you walk in there and it is like you were in the movie.
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There s no signs or ropes.
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It s just the movie.
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But does it feel amusement park-y?
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Not at all.
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Not at all.
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See, that s what s interesting.
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No, you re literally, you are just in the world of The Shire and there s rolling hills and landscapes.
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It s massive.
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You re surrounded by it.
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Yeah.
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And it s a bit like...
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If you go to Super Mario Land at Universal, you re sort of surrounded, any park, right?
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Like you re surrounded by the park.
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This is naturally done.
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So you re surrounded by hills.
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It s not like you look in the background and there s a normal human house.
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It s just purely little hobbit holes in the ground.
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And also, do you know what I m talking about?
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And when I say hobbit hole, is this making sense?
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I feel like that s like a small hut.
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It s a small hut.
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It s a small hut.
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It s a small hut, but it s built into the ground.
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So there d be like a rolling hill, but the door goes into the hill.
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Oh, that s cool.
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Yeah.
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And so the magical thing, what s just happened, you can open that door now and you go, holy shit, I m actually going into the hill.
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Wow.
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And there s a whole house there with rooms and bathrooms and dining tables and it s all there.
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Lives there.
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No, no one, there s no, there s a hobbits hunter.
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No one lives there, but they make it look like it is lived in.
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And so, as I was saying, they have, they light the chimneys every day.
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There s like a little smoke machine.
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So smoke s coming out of the hill from the little hobbit house.
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It is really stunning what they ve done.
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I m surprised they wouldn t make a place.
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Aren t they doing that with Disney sort of thing?
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Oh, you can go and live there?
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Yeah.
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I mean, that s what an American would do.
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It would, it would.
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I reckon that s how an American would think.
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It s like, we re gonna sell these lots.
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Exactly.
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For millions and people are gonna live in this place.
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People would do it.
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No, they would.
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And sort of another thing I was thinking about that s sort of different to how America would run it, and I always find this interesting.
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So they made a decision not to have any characters.
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So you don t get a little Hobbit actor popping out of the hole.
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But that somehow makes it even more believable.
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Because I find it so funny when you re at like, there s nothing better when you re at like a Star Wars thing.
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Yeah.
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And like, there s a real, they got like a real bad Luke that comes out and you re like, and these sets are amazing and they re built probably like billions of dollars go into it.
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And then we got little man comes out and you re like, oh God, this is like a bad birthday party.
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But I look at Rob sitting over there now and I m like, fly him to New Zealand, put you in a hole.
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If you came out of one of those holes, I d maybe buy it.
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They have one in San Diego.
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They built one that you can rent on Airbnb.
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SPEAKER_05
Oh, just one house?
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Yeah, that s built into a hill.
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That is really neat actually.
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I ve wanted to stay there.
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Yeah, you should go and check it out.
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They have like a friend s apartment on Airbnb also.
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Oh, like themed little worlds.
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Okay, a little potential Christmas present for Rob.
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SPEAKER_04
Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird.
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Okay, so do you want to come with me into the Hobbit hole?
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I do, I do.
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I m really excited.
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This is exciting stuff.
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I m going to venture into that hobbit hole soon.
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But first, there s this Lord of the Rings meme that s always made me absolutely lose it.
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It services every few years, doing the rounds, and inevitably I get sent it again and again because people I know know I love it.
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The video is titled, The Lord of the Rings, but with female interactions only.
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It starts out with the iconic Lord of the Rings score, massive and huge.
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Then it cuts to all the instances of females interacting with other females across the 9 hour, 18 minute runtime.
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And it s this.
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That s it, three seconds.
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A tiny girl says, where s mama?
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Her mother shushes her, and the credits roll.
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The point is, when it comes to the Bechdel test, The Lord of the Rings doesn t fare particularly well.
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In saying that, the meme s not entirely accurate, YouTuber Jormalich commenting, you missed two more scenes.
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The girl has a scene where she talks to her mother, and then there s another where a woman thanks Erwin for bringing them to Helm s Deep.
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All three are in the second movie, and all three are about two seconds long, and the other two are only in the extended version.
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I suppose a lot of people would call the meme woke, as it s making the point that a lot of the Lord of the Rings is just men talking and talking, kind of like I am now, but I just find this clip very funny and could watch it all day.
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I also find it very funny that the little kid who says, where s mama, is my friend, Olivia Tenet.
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I think my friend Kayla was the first to send it to me.
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She s a Lord of the Rings fan, so she probably follows some kind of Lord of the Rings account and sent it to me.
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Liv Tenet gets sent that meme a lot.
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Now I thought about tracking down one of the giant lead role Lord of the Rings actors for this episode, but I realised that if you want Frodo, then just listen to the Elijah Wood episode of Armchair Expert.
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I wanted to talk to Liv, now 33 years old, living happily in New Zealand with her husband and kid.
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I wanted to know about that meme scene.
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I was nine when I filmed it, and I played Freda, who was a Rohan child.
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What was it like being an actor at nine?
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Do you sort of remember the day you got that role?
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Was it a big deal, not a big deal?
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What was that like?
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I d done a couple of projects before.
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I d done like an ad, an anti-smacking campaign, quite dark.
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And I d done an episode of Xena, which is classic.
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And then I auditioned for this with my real brother, because he is also an actor.
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They wanted a brother-sister combo.
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But then the awkward thing was, I got cast and my brother didn t.
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But we now realise that that was probably because the boy that got cast as my brother in the movie looked more like me than my real brother.
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It was very good matching.
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Liv appeared in the second film in the trilogy, The Two Towers.
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With all three movies shot together in 99 and 2000, there was no big concept of how they were going to do.
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It s not like the Marvel films where one comes out, they check the box office, then the studio greenlights the next one.
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Peter Jackson shot all three at once.
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So Liv s mum, she had no idea what this role meant for her kid.
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When I got the role, my agent rang my mum and said, you know, Liv s been booked for this thing.
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The fee is going to be this.
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And my mum s reply was, oh, Linda, we won t be able to afford that.
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What?
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And my agent was like, no, no, that s what she gets paid.
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You don t have to pay anything.
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My mum really didn t know how it worked at all.
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Now, I wanted to know one main thing.
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I wanted to know what led up to that big meme moment in the movie from the woman herself.
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I have to preface this by saying I m not a Lord of the Rings fan.
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I have not watched the film in a long time.
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I m not the person to ask.
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I know my name, which was Freyda.
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I know that I was a Rohan child.
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I know that Robin Malcolm played my mum.
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I know that the town of Rohan, the town, that s what I m calling it, is attacked by... Orcs.
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Orcs.
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Or Uruk-hai?
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Is that another type of monster?
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No idea.
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I won t butt in.
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We re attacked.
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And so we are told to evacuate.
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There s a very emotional moving scene where my mother puts me on a horse and I m crying and saying, I don t want to go.
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I don t want to go.
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And then I m sent away with my brother on this horse.
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And then we are wandering for days.
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And then there s a shot of Gandalf coming out onto a hill.
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and looking out and seeing a small child on a horse.
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And that s you.
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That s me.
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Cut to me eating soup in the Great Hall.
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Miranda Otto is there talking to me.
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And that s the meme moment.
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And can you just take me through what the scene is?
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Yeah, yeah, sure.
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So we ve arrived at the Great Hall.
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We re being fed soup by Miranda Otto s character.
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I just say to her, where s Mama?
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And she just says, shh.
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As you would to a traumatised child who s asking for her mother who she s been separated from.
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Do you remember how many takes you did of that or was that one take wonder?
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We did that so much because I remember the soup got colder and colder and colder.
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And I do remember Peter Jackson coming over to us and being like, so you guys have got to look like you re starving because we d stopped eating it.
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Cause I was like, this is gross now.
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And so then we were just having to shovel down cold soup.
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Yeah.
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Think of the children guys.
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How often does that meme come around to haunt you, would you say?
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Is it every month, every couple of years, every decade?
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Oh, every couple of weeks at the moment.
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Yeah, it s really doing the rounds.
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I have to say, this surprised me.
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The movie was released in 2002.
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That s 22 years ago.
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She s 33 now.
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And a few times every week, she still gets sent that one line she uttered when she was nine.
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There s that thing of never read the comments.
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I read the comments.
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Someone had been like, this is Peter Jackson s children.
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They were only in the film because they re Peter Jackson s kids.
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And I sat being like, how do I respond to this?
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Being like, I m not Peter Jackson s kids.
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And then I was like, what am I doing?
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Just delete, delete, delete.
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I didn t reply to that person, but I m not Peter Jackson s child.
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I wish I was, no.
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Of course, nine-year-old Liv did a lot more in that film than that meme moment.
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She tells me she shot for a total of 18 days over the course of a year, and that involved another key scene, one that was a lot scarier than cold soup.
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And then there s a shot of Gandalf coming out onto a hill.
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and looking out and seeing a small child on a horse.
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And that s you.
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That s me.
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You re sort of a nine-year-old thrown on the back of a horse.
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Did you know how to ride a horse at that point?
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Was that a new thing for you?
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It was a new thing with horses.
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They did give us a few lessons to get us all trained up.
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But I mean, I remember it as a nine-year-old, the horse being absolutely huge.
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And I think they probably were ex-racehorses.
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So this horse was massive.
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And for the shot where they needed me on this hill looking lonely that Gandalf looks out to, so they put me on the horse with a stunt.
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rider, dressed as my brother s character.
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And what they wanted was us on this hill, the stunt guy, to fall off and me be left alone on the horse.
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And so they were like, yep, that seems fine.
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We can make that work.
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So they put us miles away from the crew and my mum, who was my chaperone, because I wanted this huge wide shot to look like we were really alone, no one else around.
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And the stunt guy drops off.
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and the horse starts to freak out.
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And so we re on top of this hill and the horse is freaking out and it loses its footing.
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And it starts going backwards down this hill.
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It just freaked out and it reared.
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And the crew and my mum just start sprinting across this field, expecting me to be flattened onto the horse.
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And I remember it happening and just thinking, I just have to get off.
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And so I just swung my leg off and jumped down and sort of covered my head.
3
SPEAKER_02
Cause I just remember thinking these hooves are going to just
4
SPEAKER_04
fall back on me.
4
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, everything was fine.
4
SPEAKER_04
I was just lying on the grass.
4
SPEAKER_04
But my mum then said that they still needed the shot.
4
SPEAKER_04
So they said to me, are you okay getting back on the horse?
4
SPEAKER_04
And my mum being like, I m not answering for Liv.
4
SPEAKER_04
She s just had this quite traumatic experience.
4
SPEAKER_04
She needs to call it.
4
SPEAKER_04
And apparently I was just like, we can do it again.
4
SPEAKER_03
Save the day.
4
SPEAKER_03
You got the shot.
4
SPEAKER_04
Save the day, I mean.
4
SPEAKER_04
But at nine you are probably just like, okay, sure.
4
SPEAKER_04
There s a lot of people here.
4
SPEAKER_04
I ll do it.
4
SPEAKER_03
I thank Liv for her time and insight.
4
SPEAKER_03
And it s time for me to head back to Hobbiton.
4
SPEAKER_03
As I left things, I was about to stoop over and enter my first Hobbit hole.
4
SPEAKER_03
Stepping in, I wonder if Monaco would have to bend over at all.
4
SPEAKER_03
Walking down the front corridor, I m in another world.
4
SPEAKER_03
The tiny corridor opening into a tiny hobbit lounge.
4
SPEAKER_03
And yet it s all so vast down here.
4
SPEAKER_03
I thought it would be a dinky kind of thing, but this underground burrow goes on and on.
4
SPEAKER_03
It feels like someone is living here.
4
SPEAKER_03
The lounge I m in, complete with a crackling fire, and all the rooms coming off it, it feels lived in.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s been beautifully crafted and looked after and created by a majority of people that worked on the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit trilogy.
4
SPEAKER_00
Sir Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh were involved as well, and Philippa Boynes.
4
SPEAKER_00
So they created a narrative of the Hobbits that would live here.
4
SPEAKER_00
In this case, it s the Proudfoot family.
4
SPEAKER_00
They live here with their two children and baby, plus their grandfather.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s got a whole backstory.
4
SPEAKER_00
A whole backstory.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it s very much part of that glimpse of how a movie set is constructed.
4
SPEAKER_00
So there s a narrative that s created and then
4
SPEAKER_00
that informs the art department and all the theme that goes on in here.
4
SPEAKER_00
So there s no hobbits in here.
4
SPEAKER_00
The grandfather s not asleep in the bed, but you feel like you could see a hobbit at any minute.
4
SPEAKER_03
I mean, the fire s on.
4
SPEAKER_03
It feels so lived in.
4
SPEAKER_02
You do not give me a chance to not believe this is real.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s relentlessly real.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s like I m there.
4
SPEAKER_02
It is that thing where
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, if you re in America, there d be a cone up or like some little, you know, some white thing like ushering, you know, ushering you through a hundred percent.
4
SPEAKER_00
We are a movie set.
4
SPEAKER_00
We re very different than a theme park.
4
SPEAKER_00
America does theme parks really, really well.
4
SPEAKER_00
But we are, we are different.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s nothing here to take you out of the experience.
4
SPEAKER_03
The closest thing is probably the exit signs, but even they re sort of disguised.
4
SPEAKER_02
Don t even let me not believe it with the exit signs.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s a hobbit running through a hobbit hole.
4
SPEAKER_02
Shut up.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then when we come here into the hobbit hole, people are surprised that things aren t behind glass.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can actually physically touch and pick things up and get some photos and play with things, sit down on the couches.
4
SPEAKER_00
As long as you remove your shoes, which hobbits don t have, you can jump into the beds and get some photos as well.
4
SPEAKER_00
So people are, because we re trusting them and their fans, they are very respectful.
4
SPEAKER_03
I turn to Josie, the set decorator who s followed us in, probably to make sure I don t pinch any tiny Hobbit props for Monica s eventual housewarming.
4
SPEAKER_03
What do you make of, I mean, this is your domain.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, this is the dream.
4
SPEAKER_01
I get to craft things authentically and give that to people and watch them interact with it and feel like they re in a book series that I ve loved my whole life.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s the playhouse that I dreamed of in my head as a kid.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I get to work in it and make things for it.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s just the best.
4
SPEAKER_01
The day we opened, I just kind of lurked in corners to watch because I was so excited.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I saw a whole bunch of people.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is dumb, but people my height.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m a shorty.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m not an average height person.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I kept seeing people go, oh, my gosh, the couch fits me.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow, the beds fit me.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I was just crying quietly in a corner because I was so overwhelmed.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it was it was the best feeling in the world.
4
SPEAKER_01
This world is kind of made for me and I get to make it for other short people.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that means something.
4
SPEAKER_03
We spend about 30 minutes existing in this hobbit house.
4
SPEAKER_03
I get into a tiny hobbit bank, I sit down at a tiny hobbit dining room table, I sit on a hobbit toilet, and I get into a tiny hobbit bath.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s even a tiny hobbit kitchen.
4
SPEAKER_02
I need like a hobbit version of Gordon Ramsay right now.
4
SPEAKER_02
I need like a short little Gordon Ramsay running around.
4
SPEAKER_02
It is a messy kitchen, mid-cook,
4
SPEAKER_02
This is wild.
4
SPEAKER_02
Pies fresh out of the oven.
4
SPEAKER_02
Pies.
4
SPEAKER_02
The oven is on.
4
SPEAKER_02
This is the recipe book.
4
SPEAKER_02
And it s hot.
4
SPEAKER_03
The oven s hot?
4
SPEAKER_03
Get out.
4
SPEAKER_03
I hold my hand to the oven and it s hot.
4
SPEAKER_03
That attention to detail is kind of crazy.
4
SPEAKER_03
I learned that 280 people work here to keep Hobbiton running.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s a whole team just to look after the various veggie gardens.
4
SPEAKER_03
I can see why the German had a nosebleed at all of this.
4
SPEAKER_03
And finally, it s time to go.
4
SPEAKER_03
We exit through the gift shop, and there s everything from Harry Hobbit feet to the Lord of the Rings ring.
4
SPEAKER_03
Of course, you can buy the films on DVD too.
4
SPEAKER_03
Matt has his eyes on a doormat.
4
SPEAKER_03
He ends up going with a bag-end tea towel as well.
4
SPEAKER_03
And I realise New Zealand shares something with America.
4
SPEAKER_03
A love of gift shops.
4
SPEAKER_03
Maybe we aren t so different after all.
4
SPEAKER_03
That was my experience at Hobbiton.
4
SPEAKER_05
That was fantastic.
4
SPEAKER_05
I love a gift shop.
4
SPEAKER_03
This gift shop was really impressive.
4
SPEAKER_05
I wonder if you could do an episode on gift shops, even though, like you said, they re kind of everywhere.
4
SPEAKER_03
Americans do do them well.
4
SPEAKER_05
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_03
And I just find it very funny.
4
SPEAKER_03
I did do a good gag with a friend where I said I was going to bring them something special from the Lord of the Rings Hobbiton gift shop.
4
SPEAKER_03
And I bought them the two towers on DVD.
4
SPEAKER_03
I love that they sell those things there.
4
SPEAKER_03
And I should note that it s all incredibly interactive, but you can t use the toilet.
4
SPEAKER_05
You can t.
4
SPEAKER_05
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_03
So I sit in the dock.
4
SPEAKER_03
I was sitting on it.
4
SPEAKER_03
I was just posing.
4
SPEAKER_03
I wasn t taking like- I see.
4
SPEAKER_05
A poop.
4
SPEAKER_03
Where do you use the toilet down there?
4
SPEAKER_03
There you go.
4
SPEAKER_03
That s a good question.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s a little cafe outside Hobbiton and they have toilets there.
4
SPEAKER_05
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_03
But you can t do normal size shits in a tiny Hobbit toilet.
4
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, that wouldn t- Don t.
4
SPEAKER_03
That wouldn t work.
4
SPEAKER_03
But you can get in everything.
4
SPEAKER_03
I climbed in the bath.
4
SPEAKER_03
You can get in the beds.
4
SPEAKER_03
You can climb up on the bunks.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s very interactive.
4
SPEAKER_05
They re not worried about liability or anything.
4
SPEAKER_05
This is New Zealand.
4
SPEAKER_05
I know.
4
SPEAKER_05
It s all I could think is, I can t believe they re not making you sign a waiver.
4
SPEAKER_03
If you climbed in that little hobbit bank and I fell off the ladder and hurt myself.
4
SPEAKER_03
We have a thing called ACC, and the government just covers all your injuries.
4
SPEAKER_03
So you can t sue in New Zealand.
4
SPEAKER_03
So I couldn t sue Hobbiton.
4
SPEAKER_03
It just wouldn t legally be possible.
4
SPEAKER_03
But the government will go, yeah, we will pay for your rehab from the time you fell out of that Hobbit bed for two months rehab.
4
SPEAKER_03
And that s all built into the deal.
4
SPEAKER_03
So yeah, I think that s part of it.
4
SPEAKER_03
They let you do things you wouldn t normally do otherwise.
4
SPEAKER_03
Right.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s probably why when Tom Cruise made that Mission Impossible movie with the helicopters, I think the only place in the world where he was allowed to do those stunts in a helicopter was New Zealand.
4
SPEAKER_05
Right.
4
SPEAKER_03
Got this weird loose thing going on.
4
SPEAKER_05
That s so interesting.
4
SPEAKER_05
I really loved your friend s acting story.
4
SPEAKER_03
No, so the weirdest thing is, she s not like a close personal friend, but I ve known her forever.
4
SPEAKER_03
And when I first saw that meme, I didn t realize it was her.
4
SPEAKER_03
And then someone at one point is like, that s Liv.
4
SPEAKER_03
And I m like, oh my God, it is Liv.
4
SPEAKER_03
I love how that decades on, she s still got people sending her this annoying meme of her going, mama, where s mama?
4
SPEAKER_03
And her mom being like, shh.
4
SPEAKER_05
But it wasn t her mom, it was a different person.
4
SPEAKER_05
It was kind of hard to follow, I mean, all these words and names.
4
SPEAKER_05
I get it because I love Harry so much that if I m talking to someone who doesn t get it, it s the same thing.
4
SPEAKER_03
I think Miranda Otto was the actor who played her mom.
4
SPEAKER_03
She couldn t remember what her actual mom in the film was called.
4
SPEAKER_03
So she was just remembering actors that she was playing with.
4
SPEAKER_05
But I thought she got taken from her mom.
4
SPEAKER_03
in the film she did.
4
SPEAKER_03
And also in reality she got taken from her mom because they popped her on that horse.
4
SPEAKER_05
Oh my god, can you imagine the idea of seeing my kid fall off a horse?
4
SPEAKER_05
It is so dangerous.
4
SPEAKER_05
People die.
4
SPEAKER_05
Horses are wild.
4
SPEAKER_03
I always find it funny how
4
SPEAKER_03
And maybe it s not the same in New Zealand.
4
SPEAKER_03
Parents will happily let their little girl ride a horse, and yet if their other kid wants to do, or that same girl wants to do motocross, don t even think about it.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s like horses are animals.
4
SPEAKER_03
They re unpredictable and wild.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s kind of mad.
4
SPEAKER_05
A lot of people die.
4
SPEAKER_05
Can you look up how many horse deaths because they do.
4
SPEAKER_05
She was smart to cover her head because they can t.
4
SPEAKER_03
swing her leg off and get off was an amazing thing, and then covering her head up.
4
SPEAKER_03
Also love that she just went and did it again.
4
SPEAKER_05
I know, I know.
4
SPEAKER_05
I would have totally done that.
4
SPEAKER_05
Would have been so people-pleasing.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s another thing she talked about, and she probably had an episode just on her own, but she also shot so many other scenes that just never made it into the film.
4
SPEAKER_03
So she shot a lot, but there s so much that didn t even make it in, just these little moments.
4
SPEAKER_02
There s about 710 horse riding related deaths per year in America.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a lot.
4
SPEAKER_05
I mean, that s kind of a lot.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_05
If you fall off a horse, you really got to get out of the way quick because when they kick, often they ll kick your abdomen and you internally bleed.
4
SPEAKER_05
Oh God.
4
SPEAKER_03
Just because that s the height that you re kind of at behind a horse.
4
SPEAKER_03
Or you re on
5
SPEAKER_02
They re on the ground and they can t see you and they have such force.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, no, they re strong things.
5
SPEAKER_01
I went through a stage when I was 10 of getting into horse riding.
5
SPEAKER_01
I had like a year of horse riding, equestrian.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was sort of before I d had a growth spurt, so I was a bit smaller.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was scared of them.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think you re either a horse person or you re not.
5
SPEAKER_01
I always was a bit like, I don t trust you.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t like the way you re looking at me.
5
SPEAKER_02
People love horses.
5
SPEAKER_02
There s a whole equine therapy.
5
SPEAKER_02
Do you know about this?
5
SPEAKER_01
Not really.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s a whole method of therapy using horses.
5
SPEAKER_02
And apparently they have some calming effects.
5
SPEAKER_01
Healing powers.
5
SPEAKER_02
Healing powers.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, they are, in saying that, my niece has a horse and she loves that horse.
5
SPEAKER_01
And there is something about the, they are sort of calm.
5
SPEAKER_01
They re majestic.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s never tried to kick me, like very friendly.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yet.
5
SPEAKER_01
I saw, and I wonder if this was a dream or real.
5
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes you don t know.
5
SPEAKER_01
I know.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right?
5
SPEAKER_02
I agree.
5
SPEAKER_01
They take cats and dogs into hospitals to like jump on the bed and comfort people.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m sure there was a hospital somewhere in America that was doing horse therapy.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I just remember this tiny old lady near death in a hospital bed.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s just this giant horse next to her.
5
SPEAKER_01
In the hospital?
5
SPEAKER_01
In the ward.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s a real thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay, this is a dream for sure.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m seeing it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wait, really?
5
SPEAKER_01
You had the same dream?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I ve seen a lot of photos of horses in hospitals.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, they take them in.
5
SPEAKER_01
If I was a hospital director, I d be like, if it goes well, great.
5
SPEAKER_01
But if they start kicking the IV machine and all that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right, exactly.
5
SPEAKER_01
Also, have you seen a horse take a dump or a piss?
5
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God, it s horrifying.
5
SPEAKER_01
Can you imagine a horse emptying its bladder in a ward?
5
SPEAKER_01
That feels not good.
5
SPEAKER_02
Ew.
5
SPEAKER_02
In New York City, when you re walking through Central Park, because they have all the carriages and stuff, and it s just enormous dumps everywhere.
5
SPEAKER_01
They ve got to stop doing that.
5
SPEAKER_01
I put my animal rights hats on, but there s footage when they make the horses do that in the height of summer, and there s shots where they just get so fatigued, they just drop down like they re done.
5
SPEAKER_01
They really need to stop that horse-drawn shit.
5
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, it was just shit everywhere.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re wearing an outfit in the hospital.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a gown it s wearing.
5
SPEAKER_00
So maybe it s catching the shit.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s the surgeon?
5
SPEAKER_01
The horse is operating?
5
SPEAKER_00
Maybe catching the shit.
5
SPEAKER_02
It wasn t a dream.
5
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_02
That s, I was 99% dream on that.
5
SPEAKER_01
I wish right now I d teed up a horse walking to the attic in my moniker.
5
SPEAKER_01
This is a surprise.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
5
SPEAKER_01
They just poops immediately everywhere.
5
SPEAKER_01
Have you ever been on the back of a horse?
5
SPEAKER_01
Have you ever had a ride as a kid?
5
SPEAKER_02
I feel like I have at daycare.
5
SPEAKER_02
If we went on a trip, you know, you went on like all these day trips or whatever.
5
SPEAKER_02
I m sure I was on the back of a pony.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, right.
5
SPEAKER_01
I did one of those touristy things where you can go to like a little ranch in Hollywood and you can get horses and walk up the walking tracks on a horse.
5
SPEAKER_02
Oh, and you did that.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I feel like the horse I got was about 102.
5
SPEAKER_01
He was very sloppy on his feet, and he insisted on walking on the edge of the path.
5
SPEAKER_02
No, no, no, no, no.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that felt bad.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I m not going to do that.
5
SPEAKER_01
I feel like those, yeah, I m not going to do that again.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ve probably ridden two dozen horses.
5
SPEAKER_00
Two dozen?
5
SPEAKER_00
All the time when I was little.
5
SPEAKER_00
Who are you?
5
SPEAKER_00
Vacations, that s what we would do.
5
SPEAKER_00
Family trips, we d do a little horseback riding.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re right.
5
SPEAKER_00
On a trail, nothing crazy.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I can see you on, especially the way you re dressed right now.
5
SPEAKER_01
I can see you on the back of a horse.
5
SPEAKER_01
I would wear this when I went on.
5
SPEAKER_01
It would be true.
5
SPEAKER_01
Kate would be trailing behind you.
5
SPEAKER_01
A lot of horses in Lord of the Rings.
5
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think thinking of Liv, brave Liv on the back of that horse, I think that s something probably that makes these movies so respected is they got the real horses and they got the real people.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think there s something about those films when you watch them where, sure, there s CG, but it s also very grounded and real.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think something about that has made these movies last.
5
SPEAKER_01
So much longer and people love them so so much.
5
SPEAKER_02
I need to watch and see what I think.
5
SPEAKER_01
Same.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_02
I think we need to come and report back.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s bad form that I did this episode without having watched the trilogy, but it s a lot of time.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s over nine hours.
5
SPEAKER_00
You guys will like it.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s about a band of different species coming together to conquer evil.
5
SPEAKER_00
For one common good.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s dwarves, there s elves, there s humans, there s hobbits.
5
SPEAKER_02
I like the idea of it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Actor in it, Legolas.
5
SPEAKER_00
Orlando Bloom.
5
SPEAKER_01
Orlando Bloom, that was his big thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
And Viggo Mortensen.
5
SPEAKER_02
Viggo Mortensen.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
But you know, when these things are being shot in New Zealand, and these actors just lived there for years, so you occasionally see these people wandering around.
5
SPEAKER_02
Does the New Zealand airport, kind of like the Roswell airport, is it immediate?
5
SPEAKER_01
In Auckland, I don t know if they do any more, the main Auckland, they have... The eagles?
5
SPEAKER_01
So eagles are in Wellington.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Wellington airport goes ham.
5
SPEAKER_01
So it s actually amazing.
5
SPEAKER_01
So they ve got these giant eagles overhead when you walk through arrivals and... Gandalf rides eagles.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think he s on the Eagle.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s the old man I saw on top of the Eagle.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s Gandalf.
5
SPEAKER_01
Also, New Zealand is very famous for its in-flight entertainment videos.
5
SPEAKER_01
You know how sometimes an American airline, you ll get like a wacky video where they re not in plane seats.
5
SPEAKER_01
They re somewhere else and they try and make it a bit cool and edgy.
5
SPEAKER_01
So in the old days, they were all just like, they re on a plane.
5
SPEAKER_01
This is how you do your oxygen mask and your seatbelt.
5
SPEAKER_01
What New Zealand started doing, our airline Air New Zealand was doing, and a lot of this was like really solidified when Lord of the Rings came out, doing wacky in-flight videos.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so it ended up being a marketing campaign, whereas I can t remember, I think Taika Waititi directed one of them.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s just, they re in Hobbit land and they re putting on seatbelts, so they re on back of an eagle.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that kind of, I think made the other airlines, and the other airlines never do it as well.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think Air New Zealand doesn t do them that well anymore either.
5
SPEAKER_01
But my point is, New Zealand invented the wacky in-flight entertainment video.
5
SPEAKER_02
And the airport is immediate Lord of the Rings-y.
5
SPEAKER_01
It is really cool.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s a massive giant eagle flying overhead, Gandalf s on the back.
5
SPEAKER_01
So New Zealand really does embrace it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And there is a guidebook you can buy where it basically takes you to all 250 locations.
5
SPEAKER_01
And there s people that come to New Zealand, probably that nose-bleeding German,
5
SPEAKER_01
Who just spend their entire time in New Zealand seeing all the places.
5
SPEAKER_02
I really like that.
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SPEAKER_02
I like when there s something that brings people together.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
That s really nice.
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SPEAKER_02
There s so few things like that anymore.
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SPEAKER_01
Totally.
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SPEAKER_02
I do want to go into one of those small hobbit holes.
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SPEAKER_01
It s amazing, and it s hard to describe how lived in and magical it feels.
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You feel like you re in another universe, and it s lived in, and it s there.
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SPEAKER_01
An interesting thing they did tell me is that it s not scaled as it is in the movie, because they said if we made it the actual heights that Tolkien laid out for a Hobbit hole, humans would go in there, and you d just be uncomfortable.
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SPEAKER_01
You d be bent over, you d be banging your head.
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SPEAKER_01
So they ve scaled it up to a point where it still feels tiny, but it s like a human level where you re not crawling around having a nightmare.
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SPEAKER_01
So going in there, I was like, oh yeah, this is what the actual size would be like.
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SPEAKER_01
It feels small.
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SPEAKER_01
But they re like, no, we ve scaled this shit up because we were planning how it could have been if it was actually accurate.
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SPEAKER_01
People will be having a horrible time.
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SPEAKER_01
They ll be crawling around on all fours, bumping their head.
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SPEAKER_01
I d say maybe four and a half feet in through a doorway.
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SPEAKER_01
You have to really get down, but you would have to crouch a little.
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SPEAKER_01
You re not that short.
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SPEAKER_01
I just like doing jokes about height.
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SPEAKER_01
I am very short.
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SPEAKER_01
And when that wonderful woman that was doing all the props and everything, she just got really emotional.
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SPEAKER_02
I think that s so sweet.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, just loved people feeling like, oh, this is a universe that was built for me.
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SPEAKER_02
There s something about seeing the fruit of your labor.
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SPEAKER_02
She spends her life doing this bizarre thing and then seeing people like it.
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SPEAKER_01
Just lose their mind.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it must feel so good.
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SPEAKER_01
And I also love the other employee there that was
5
SPEAKER_01
in the movies, her scene shot there, and now she works there.
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SPEAKER_01
She s been doing that for like almost 15 years.
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SPEAKER_01
It s just a very, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
And it was funny.
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SPEAKER_01
There are quite a few Americans that do work there.
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SPEAKER_01
And I always said to them, like, what are you, like, what does your family think you re doing?
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SPEAKER_01
They don t understand.
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SPEAKER_01
They re like, you re working in the Shire?
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SPEAKER_01
What the hell?
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SPEAKER_01
What are you doing in New Zealand?
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SPEAKER_01
It s just such a funny thing to do.
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SPEAKER_02
I don t know.
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SPEAKER_02
It sounds sort of appealing to me.
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SPEAKER_02
It sounds like if you need a break from the world, the real world, and everyone needs a break from the real world, because it s intense, that that s kind of a nice place to go or a nice place to work and sort of immerse yourself in.
5
SPEAKER_01
And correct me if I m wrong, Rob, but like Hobbiton represents utopia, right?
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SPEAKER_01
It s the way the world s meant to be.
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SPEAKER_01
So being there, you kind of feel.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
It does have a similar vibe to Teletubbies.
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SPEAKER_01
It just feels like... No, no, no!
5
SPEAKER_00
That s bad.
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SPEAKER_00
That s bad.
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SPEAKER_01
But you know how Teletubbies is like, this is like heightened and magical.
5
SPEAKER_02
I hate Teletubbies.
5
SPEAKER_02
What are you talking about?
5
SPEAKER_01
They re so creepy.
5
SPEAKER_01
They are weird.
5
SPEAKER_02
And are they children?
5
SPEAKER_01
I assume they were aliens from another planet or something.
5
SPEAKER_02
They were young.
5
SPEAKER_01
Were they like youngish?
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SPEAKER_02
I hope because they act, ooh, they re like, they re pedophiles.
5
SPEAKER_02
I feel like there s something, well, men invented them.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they did.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, no, there is, that was a bad comparison.
5
SPEAKER_01
Hobbiton is not like Teletubbyland.
5
SPEAKER_01
I guess I just mean they re both heightened.
5
SPEAKER_01
They have hills and a sun.
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SPEAKER_01
That s all.
5
SPEAKER_02
I m never, now, now
6
SPEAKER_03
when I watch Lord of the Rings, all I m going to see is Teletubby and it s tainted.
6
SPEAKER_00
They re like barely at the Shire in the movie.
6
SPEAKER_00
They re on their journey most of the time.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ve got one question for you, Rob, about Lord of the Rings.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it s something that I watched on YouTube, but I ve just always found very funny.
6
SPEAKER_01
The very end, spoiler alert.
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SPEAKER_01
Very end.
6
SPEAKER_01
It all goes well in their journey.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think they succeed.
6
SPEAKER_01
The last 10 minutes of Lord of the Rings, I think the hobbits are in a little bed and all the main characters in the film come to greet the hobbits.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it s just shots of... Okay, I m going to pull it up.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay, I m going to pull up the final scene.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think it s just because they like sleeping.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, Lord of the Rings... No, but it s just, it s so like... Okay.
6
SPEAKER_00
It notoriously had an ending where it ended for like a half hour, where it just kept going and going and going.
6
SPEAKER_01
Final Lord of the Rings scene.
6
SPEAKER_03
It s very Jesus-y.
6
SPEAKER_04
Gandalf?
6
SPEAKER_04
Oh!
6
SPEAKER_04
what the fuck is going on oh my god
6
Oh my god.
6
SPEAKER_02
Oh, there s tench.
6
SPEAKER_02
There s tension with these two.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what it is, but... Yeah, you re watching Sean Austin coming in now.
6
SPEAKER_01
You think it s over?
6
SPEAKER_03
Do they hate each other?
6
SPEAKER_01
No, they love.
6
SPEAKER_01
There s love in real life.
6
SPEAKER_01
There s love in the world.
6
SPEAKER_01
Wasn t that amazing?
6
SPEAKER_03
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_03
I mean, it s hard because I have no idea what came before it.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s just a very beautiful, there s a lot of characters all looking at each other giggling and it s fun and they re jumping on the bed.
6
SPEAKER_00
You ll cry, there s like a whole nine hours leading up to that of their hard journey and this is...
6
SPEAKER_03
Right.
6
SPEAKER_03
I mean, that s what I m saying.
6
SPEAKER_03
Out of context, it looks crazy, but maybe... Has it intrigued you to watch it now?
6
SPEAKER_03
Are you the type of person who reads the last page of a book?
6
SPEAKER_01
No, never.
6
SPEAKER_01
What I just did is such bad form.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s sacrilegious.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I feel it s been out for so long, I feel okay doing it.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, my friend, Rosabelle, she sometimes will, before a movie, will go to the Wikipedia page and read the Wikipedia page to see if she wants to see the movie or not.
6
SPEAKER_03
We were just talking about this on a fact check because we called my mom.
6
SPEAKER_03
Dax asked her about the Super Bowl.
6
SPEAKER_03
She said she was sort of half watching.
6
SPEAKER_03
She was watching something else.
6
SPEAKER_03
And then we got off and I said, yeah, she s always on many devices.
6
SPEAKER_03
And then often when we start a movie, she looks up stuff about the movie as we re watching it.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, actively spoiling it.
6
SPEAKER_03
I know.
6
SPEAKER_01
Cause you know, Rosebell would argue, I think that she has limited time.
6
SPEAKER_01
She doesn t want to waste her time.
6
SPEAKER_01
So she wants to have an idea and I m sure she doesn t do this with everything.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m probably miss, I would never misrepresent her.
6
SPEAKER_01
I feel I might be in this case, but reading a Wikipedia page is one of the funniest things I can imagine.
6
SPEAKER_01
Cause that s like synopsis, reception, everything.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m the kind of guy that when I m watching trailers, I ll cover my ears and eyes for some trailers because it s giving too much away.
6
SPEAKER_03
I know, so interesting.
6
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, I m sorry for spoiling the end of Lord of the Rings where they all live and are really happy.
6
SPEAKER_01
They re all happy.
6
SPEAKER_01
Sure, some people die along the way.
6
SPEAKER_00
People die, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
People die.
6
SPEAKER_01
Does Gollum live or die?
6
SPEAKER_01
I m not going to tell you.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay, fair enough.
6
SPEAKER_03
Well, I feel the same as far as the same amount of New Zealand, the same amount of American.
6
SPEAKER_01
Unchanged.
6
SPEAKER_03
Unchanged, but I am intrigued.
6
SPEAKER_01
Watch part one.
6
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Just three hours and see how you feel after that.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then, you know, you ve got another two Lord of the Rings films.
6
SPEAKER_01
And if you really like those, you ve got three Hobbit movies.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then you ve got a season of the Amazon show.
6
SPEAKER_03
Oh, wow, wow, wow.
6
SPEAKER_01
Just content for days.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then you ve got the books.
6
SPEAKER_01
I feel like you re more American for having not seen it.
6
SPEAKER_01
I am actually showing my American colors by not having seen it.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s true.
6
SPEAKER_02
You re definitely less New Zealand.
6
SPEAKER_02
You re less Kiwi.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m less New Zealand.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m more American.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t know how I feel about that.
6
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for coming on the journey into the Shire with me.
6
SPEAKER_01
That was fun.
6
SPEAKER_03
Thank you, Liv.
6
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, Liv is... she s...
6
SPEAKER_01
That was great.
6
SPEAKER_01
And Rob, thank you for dressing up and getting on theme with today s episode.
6
SPEAKER_01
I hope that you wear it tomorrow.
6
SPEAKER_01
Can you fucking wear that tomorrow, Stan?
6
SPEAKER_01
That would be incredible.
6
SPEAKER_01
In that little line with all those people from LA?
6
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely not.
6
SPEAKER_03
That would be so good.
6
SPEAKER_01
Thing is, it suits you.
6
SPEAKER_03
You d kind of blend in also.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know what?
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t think anyone would say anything.
6
SPEAKER_01
I agree.
6
SPEAKER_01
They re just like, you re Los Feliz resident.
6
SPEAKER_01
And here you are.
6
SPEAKER_01
And try and pay for the coffee with your ring.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay, bye.
6
SPEAKER_01
Bye.