Tribute.ca presents The Hobbit

New Hobbit sculpture revealed


As the world prepares for the release of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, residents of Wellington, New Zealand prove once again why their country is the closest thing on Earth to J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional Middle-earth. Just a few days ago, a 9.4 meter-tall statue of Gandalf went up on top of the Embassy […]

As the world prepares for the release of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, residents of Wellington, New Zealand prove once again why their country is the closest thing on Earth to J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional Middle-earth. Just a few days ago, a 9.4 meter-tall statue of Gandalf went up on top of the Embassy Theater. A maintenance crew began work on this gigantic Tolkien tribute at about 4 a.m. on November 18 and after closing part of the central city and realigning overhead bus cables to accomodate the installation, they finished at about 5 p.m. the same day. The statue shows the wizard knocking at the door of a Hobbit hole. Production designer Dan Hennah took the time to give a detailed description of the statue, explaining that its basic aluminum-bolted frame is covered in “a layer of ply, on top of that a thin layer of polystyrene,” topped off with “hula skirts, which make up the grass.” In New Zealand, there is already a giant Gollum statue at the Wellington airport, a Hobbit artisian market and a sculpture of Bilbo and the dwarf company on top of the NZ Post building. ~Brandon Bastaldo

Comments: