27 animals die during Hobbit filming

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

For the sake of fairness and there's always two sides to an issue. . .

Often, many sides, depending upon the news agency which reports the story and which of the participants are interviewed and quoted. I read this in a CBC news story and the CBC is very good at checking its stories. It's version makes very clear that the deaths were not on the set per se but were the result of harmful living conditions. Here's that version:

New Zealand Hobbit animal deaths

Originally Posted by Boro

You would expect Jackson and the film-makers to deny responsibility, and it appears none were mistreated or injured during the actual filming. The issue is the "housing" of the animals may have been substandard and dangerous. Of course the company line is "these are disgruntled wranglers, we got rid of over a year ago."

I doubt this will be the last we hear of this story, and so I will continue to reserve judgement on possible mistreatment until more is known.

If we dig a little deeper into the stories, it isn't so cut and dried as a he said/she said. In the CBC version, a spokesperson for the movie/Jackson says that two deaths of horses were "avoidable" and the company spent a great deal of money improving conditions for the animals. That seems to suggest that the company had heard of the conditions and did something to ameliorate the situation. So there is not a straight denial of responsibility from the film company.

Originally Posted by CBC story

Dravitzki, the spokesman for Peter Jackson, said the production company reacted swiftly after the first two horses died, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars upgrading housing and stable facilities in early 2011.

"We do know those deaths were avoidable and we took steps to make sure it didn't happen again," he said.

Perhaps the full story is that not enough was done to ameliorate conditions for animals; maybe newline just didn't push hard enough to ensure that problems were overcome.

Or perhaps this story is being used to highlight loopholes in animal care oversight. What more powerful way to point out those problems than the conditions of such a prominent movie, particularly where the animals did not die on the set but as a result of the living conditions created by the movie company.

The timing is interesting, but remember that NewLine was forced via a long and protracted law suit to pay the Tolkien Estate its rightful profits from the movies.

[Boromir88]

It is a sad and unfortunate thing to hear about. And I don't want to make light of, or condone mistreatment of animals which could cause harm or death' particularly is the situations which could have been avoided.

I primarily just wanted to add perspective before jumping on a media finger-pointing frenzy. For instance, I have seen this story being used as the sole reasons to boycotting The Hobbit, which in my opinion are too extreme, but to each their own. I have no intentions of watching the films in theaters, but this is based off a long line of news about the films and the apparent disregard for trying to even remain remotely faithful to Tolkien's story. I would still not be calling for any boycott or shutting down of the films, I mean they're made and if people want to see them, that's their choice, I choose to wait for I have no driving need to watch in theaters.

The perspective being, hundreds of animals were used in the films, I can see it being enough that no harm or mistreatment was caused during the filming parts. There appears to be a gap in the oversight of animal treatment in films. However, from what I've seen it sounds like the proper authorities were alerted to possible issues in the housing of the animals. And the steps were taken by the film-makers (or should it be producers?) to comply with solving the issues.

Maybe the 27 deaths were avoidable, maybe more could have been done...who knows. But my feelings are, accidents and mistakes happen, and as much as people like to search for where the fault and blame falls, sometimes there is no one at fault. Sometimes it is the people doing the best they can with the information they have and are given at the time.

[Boromir88]

From Peter Jackson's facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/permalink.ph...51300381651558

If someone can't read the link, PM me and I'll post the full story here.

As I said, Bb, not to make light of a sad situation, but it seems more and more likely some former Hobbit workers are trying to get their name in the headlines as the movies are about to come out.

[Mithalwen]

I wonder how many potential filmgoers have enquired about the conditions the animals that fed the cast and crew lived and died in. Rather hypocritical to get up inarms about actor chickens and ignore the fate of batterh farm produced poultry that is the catering staple. No excuse for the horses though. You don't have to spend a fortune to make their environment safe if you are sensible about it.

[Morthoron]

Perhaps the animals died of chagrin at being miscast in the Hobbit movie.

What do you mean I'm being insensitive?

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Perhaps the animals died of chagrin at being miscast in the Hobbit movie.

Given some of the dwarvish casting there are probably some Trakehners sulking under a lot of fake mane, tail and feather who had hoped thet somehow the Mearas had been written in.

[radagastly]

I'll be interested to see if they change the closing credits. Usually, at least in the U.S. releases, films that use animals include the tagline, "No animals were harmed during the filming of this movie." I wonder if they'll mention something about this. An acknowledgement of the sacrifice that these animals endured would be nice. That many animals in one place, over that long of time, some would probably have been injured anyway. I also wonder if this is the same farm that was used for the filming of the Lord of the Rings movies. I guess that whichever Animal Rights society was in charge of monitoring the production should have investigated the boarding facilities before the production began. PETA should be mad at them, not at the production company.

I guess that, as much as I love my own animal, we don't know enough to be sure whether the Producers of The Hobbit are directly responsible, or if they did as much as they could. My heart goes out to those people who loved those 27 animals that are now gone (I hope each of these animals had someone to love them, and they weren't just treated as property.)

This just makes me sad. That should be enough.

[Nerwen]

Aren't PETA the ones who tried to rename fish "sea-kittens" a while back? Really don't think they have too much credibility...