[merlilot]

I would call my self 'hard-core'. i read the books before really considering England vs NZ.

BUT!!

I would have to agree with Ian McKellen. He said that there is nothing in UK untouched. And that untouched, new, unexplored feeling to the landscape is essential to creating the time period. NZ is essentially new, especially compared to UK. [I think that] JRRT would've wanted 'us' to value the purity of the landscape (he was just a bit of an environmentalist), rather than throw a fit about the actual location.

It woulda been great if we coulda made it in UK, actually, but it wouldhave been decidedly British (not that there's anything wrong with that!) rather than Kiwi. And since NZ is so foreign to most of us, the very knowledge that they were [for the most part] so far away from familiar civilation, creates the feeling that they are ACTUALLY in Middle Earth.


**and that is MY 2 wafers of lembas**