RMH
todays bird
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
occasionally subtle
⁂
@theartofmadeline
will byers stan first human second
izzy's playlists!
One Nice Bug Per Day
hello vonnie
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
Product Placement
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Discoholic 🪩
Andulka
macklin celebrini has autism
almost home
if i look back, i am lost
dirt enthusiast
Love Begins
seen from Lithuania
seen from Russia
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from Indonesia
seen from Argentina
seen from United States
seen from Mexico
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Sweden
seen from Denmark
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
@magicoalverman
This is the FUNNIEST SHIT I HAVE EVER SEEN
Reblogging for cultural enrichment
bout time I brought back the Laurel and Hardy flex tape-
From The Killers, 1946. A Film Noir Classic
I’m an archivist, behold my growing collection was of old photos mirroring timeless memes I’ve come across at various places I’ve worked.
hope is a skill
hope is a weapon you are trained to wield
favourite additions
You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.
@quiggsy This doesn't seem to have posted for some reason, but thankfully I had another tab open with the ask in it so I can do it this way.
Link to the tweet here
God Bless America,
If the 4th of july was fuckable I'd fuck it
That poster makes me want to celebrate and i'm as you know not American.
So, my niece was born on 4th of July, and she lives in Finland. They celebrate with a gigantic American party for all of her, well, that's true. Was American, she claims she's no longer American, and she's ashamed of her country. Fuck her. I don't, I, so glad she moved to Finland, so I don't have to fucking see her at all. But yeah, it doesn't matter. You know what? You're an American, you're as American as I am. I mean, I got Swedish blood in me, so there. You're an American.
I'll have drink tomorrow then. 🍺
Have one for me too. Too hot to drink here.
When I was stationed in Oman, I met a 17-year-old Iranian boy. He asked every American he met if they could help him get a visa to come to America.
Why?
He wanted to be an American. He left his family in Iran, and his father told him if he ever came back he'd kill him.
I don't know if he ever made it over here. I hope he did.
That boy was more American than many who were born here.
Promotional art for SVA x Gamer Supps x Bleach Thousand Year Blood War #drinkBleach
Drink BLEACH today! Soul Reaper approved (Household cleaner absolutely not) Manifested from the Soul Society, Ichigo Kurosaki unleashes the
What idiot communists think 'from each according to his ability, from each according to their need means: I get to do whatever I want and be given infinite luxury goods whenever I want.
What it actually means in practice: Comrade, you are able to work 16 hours a day at the radioactive asbestos factory. And you only need flavorless gruel and a cot to sleep on. Actually scratch that, having a cot is bourgeois decadence.
Quick tell the socialist and former socialist states that their higher homeownership rates than any capitalist nation is bourgeoise decadence.
Lol you must be talking to babies. Which tracks if you're a libertarian or rightoid.
You mean the ugly, brutalist and small brick shit houses plastered everywhere like gigantic cinderblocks?
You can always go with Vienna's model, then. Lol grrrr I'd rather have homeless people and the threat of homelessness. That's better than *checks notes* ugly buildings.
Unironically, yes
Okay, then look up the Vienna model. After Red Vienna, most of the housing was socialized. They have BEAUTIFUL architecture and comfortable living space. So, there are different approaches. But, you wanted to just be absolutely certain you locked in a yes to homelessness. Neat.
So you mean to tell me a homogenous, high trust society the size of one of the smaller US States - I'm assuming Austria as a whole - managed that, because it knew it's citizens wouldn't abuse and exploit it?
How bout that?
Yeah, I know your type. Japan is an ethnostate. They have no immigration and they are about to decline. They also hold 1.2 Trillion in US debt. So, that will be fun.
Israel is an ethnostate...
Good luck with that.
So, Austria is big penis and US is small penis? Austria can achieve things that America can't? Damn, dude if you think life would be better somewhere else, maybe you should move? Eh? Eh? See how fun that was?
I'm German. Half my country already went through communism and it was hell for everyone involved.
Importing foreigners who hate you is NOT a solution to declining birthrates. Never will be.
And yeah, if America WAS a high-trust society from coast to coast, it COULD do what the Austrians did. I am just going to take your word for it that it worked, by the way. But the American government can't even keep the frauds and scams out of their existing social programmes. What makes you think adding MORE would solve anything?
Nah, shoulda been more hell. Stalin wanted to kill 50-100k Nazi leaders still in Germany and the West said no. Stalin wanted to starve out the East German population. I genuinely think the wall was a bad idea. Let them leave, let the clusterfuck of over population that capitalism never solved be an every day reality for West Germans.
You have universal healthcare, tuition free education, mandatory paid leave, pension schemes, and robust worker protections. That's literally all I'm advocating for, is what you have lol and Americans would call that communism or at least socialism.
Okay, what's your solution to declining birthrates? No more Turkish people? 😂😂
You should look up social housing in Austria. It is still happening to this day. They have more affordable rent than Berlin or wherever you're from. The amount of frauds and scams being shown on TV are the same level of issues Germany has, you just don't have a reality TV style media environment like we do.
I'd love to see the rampant problems that come with having more than enough housing and having it be a right. Can't even imagine what that problem would even look like lol maybe some lost GDP? God forbid.
The guest workers of the post WW2 era were actually needed to rebuild everything destroyed. Moreover, they integrated into our society. They were doing their thing and Natives did theirs. There was a mutual understanding of live and let live. NOW, we have yearly protests at Christmas markets, terror attacks on them and demands to comply with Islam even if we don't follow that pedophile prophet.
The people coming today are not the same people who came here back then.
And the answer is to make it more financially viable for young people to start families. Not importing foreigners who hate you.
And maybe your people would be more open to thes protections if your government wasn't so shit at handling taxpayer dollars and funneling it into their own pockets. I point again to the Minnesota fraud schemes by Ilhan Omar and, who was it, Tim Waltz?
That's even disregarding the fact that OUR OWN government can't handle these tax payer euros. Our pensions and social security funds are RAPIDLY depleting and all our chancelor has to say is that "young people gotta start saving up more"
So no, IT OS CURRENTLY NOT WORKING
Not to mention, importing foreigners takes away housing from the native population. By default. Immigration makes the housing market worse.
Honestly, I don't know why you're bothering arguing any of this with someone who thinks Israel is an Ethnostate. They're not going to have accurate information and they're not going to be sane to begin with. Hell, you can see that they hold the position of 'I don't care what the people who live in a location have to say, *I* know better about their history than they do!'
It's pure Imperial Core bullshit.
I'm considering turning off the notes for this post so I dont have to hear from them again.
The litany of their misunderstandings is just... Staggering. I wouldn't blame you turning off the notes this person is not smart enough to be worth dealing with.
What's funny is I regularly get into discussions and end up showing how ignorant the rightoids are. I guess it's staggering to call Israel an ethnostate when that is their wettest of dreams. They may not be an ethnostate, but it is their ambition. Like Hitler and the Nazis, they operated an ethnostate. But the Israelis just can't do that, no way Jose. Can't even have a discussion with me about it? Bc of how staggering my misunderstandings are Lol
Robin Hood got absolutely cumstered and dumpstered a few weeks back in this thread that's why HE personally stopped responding to these and is now annoyed by the notes. He tried showing up to the fight again and I ate his lunch again. 10/10 live to make Nazis do the right thing.
Turn off the notes Robin, rest in peace.
Ah, lovely, the 'I'm telling actual obvious lies, but really guys that's what they REALLY desire! It's not me telling a lie, I'm just secretly in tune with their ambitions!' response! That's entirely surprising and not at all exactly what I'd expect from you.
You're just very bad at this, you know that?
Now, before we do anything else, have you ever heard of a 'Treasury Bond'?
Have you ever heard of the term 'Bubble Economy'?
Are you aware of the issues IN the Vienna Model? Where the costs outstrip the income so badly that even when subsidised by general tax revenue, they still lack the funding to do maintenance and upkeep at times?
People don't stop responding to you because you win arguments. People stop responding to you because you refuse to learn about the subjects you talk about.
It's like getting into an argument with a toddler. There's no winning in bothering to respond to you, because you will just find an excuse to deflect from the subject at hand.
Oh. I don't think you know much about the history of Israel and Zionism if you don't think an ethnostate is their ambition. Lol they parade rapists through the streets for raping Palestinian prisoners. My guess is that you're actually a Zionist or a libtard (or a full fledged retard) if you defend the state of Israel and say they don't want an ethnostate. That's just disingenuous. Lol
Damn, we just started and I'm already bad at this?
Yes, services cost things. Idk why you morons act like it's a terrible situation that it costs money to operate a state program. Are you in a fantasy world where running government programs is free? Lol
No, no. They specifically stop responding when I show that I know more than they do and have done more research and reading. Usually you guys think Instagram reels are equivalent to reading a text book. That's where most of the "proof" that is presented comes from, that and blue collar political memes. I just demonstrate my knowledge on the topic and pin them on points they hate to concede. And then I just keep asking them about that topic. That's when they stop responding lol
and 0 out of four!
ZERO!
So you don't know what a treasury bond is, you don't know what the 'Bubble Economy' was, you don't actually know about the Vienna model and it's problems (because wow, you really deflected on the whole 'the system is not running as promised) and you STILL are on the 'trust me bro! It's the way things really are!' line!
A net fuck all out of ten. This is why I said dealing with you is like dealing with a toddler.
Try again. Try SOMETHING. Try anything but 'trust me bro' and deflection. Because you're just... So bad. So very bad at this.
Hell, I'll give you an out. A simple out. Forget Israel, you're just going to start spewing Antisemitism and honestly it'll distract from the topics at hand. You're very much the Nazi in waiting but that's not important.
Try 'Bubble Economy'. We're really going to go very very simple and have you just answer, without research, anything you know about the Bubble Economy.
I know you'll probably look it up so you can pretend to be smart, because you're really dumb, but at least TRY to do this ONE thing. One.
Oh, no I know what a treasury bond is. I know what an economic bubble is, my guy. What does that have to do with the fact that it costs money to operate state programs? That's what we're talking about. Did you think that state housing programs would or should be as profitable as landlordship? Lol
No, it's not antisemitic to criticize the state of Israel or Zionism. Lol it's antisemitic to say the state of Israel and Zionism operate at the behest of all Jews. Which I'm assuming is your position.
What is your point about economic bubbles? Which economic bubble are we talking about? What is your point about treasury bonds? Lol just asking what they are is not going to get a response of me just defining the terms.
How about you get to your points and stop assuming I don't know anything lol start there.
...
Buddy. 0. Out. of. ANYTHING.
The bar was on the fucking GROUND. I stated it, specifically. I named the thing. 'The Bubble Economy'. Of course you don't know why it's important or relevant to anything, because if you knew anything about it, you'd KNOW why it was relevant to anything!
I'm trying, I'm seriously throwing you lifelines here. I'm asking you what you know about things, and you can't bother to give a response.
This is seriously embarrassing here because you know NOTHING about anything, and it specifically shows because you can't even do the simple 'what do you know about X' test
The closest, CLOSEST you've gotten to doing so is saying 'what bubble' which seriously while an admission of ignorance is still fucking not even an honest 'No, I don't know what 'The Bubble Economy' means.'
I'm gonna do you a solid and then walk away, because you're seriously stupid and I need to do more entertaining things with my time.
"The Bubble Economy" describes a specific event, declining birth rates are only an issue to an ongoing welfare economy and shoring up failing corporate numbers, multiple governments own US treasury bonds, which are counted as 'debt' because they will eventually be repaid.
Now, you may respond with 'I already know all this!' because you are in fact a moron. But it's painfully obvious you do not actually 'know' any of this, because you've already made 'points' based on your absolute ignorance of these minor details, amongst other things.
Again, people give up on you, because it's not worth the time to bother with you.
I just love how instantly he went to "actually the communists killing people were good and they should have killed more people," followed by an utterly profound misunderstanding of everything.
Like he thinks it would be bad for West Germany to let refugees in because of *overpopulation*. Their population should have been lower, presumably by killing them.
Can I get a line of whatever that dude was snorting? It has got to be the good stuff for him to be just that confidently wrong.
And my God, the logic. His logic was just... *chef's kiss*
I mean, he had all of the elements for a logical conclusion of what would have happened if the whole population of East Germany had moved west. They had already discussed the reason that the Guest Workers had been invited. I guess extrapolation just isn't his strong suit.
I like how the Israel pic is just some (I assume) soldier taking a picture and looking unattractive.
With no further context.
I love how a supposed ethnostate is more diverse and accepting - by custom and law - than the state they're supposedly occupying.
Israel haters seem to have pretty blatant double standards, across the board.
I guess it's staggering to call Israel an ethnostate when that is their wettest of dreams.
I also like how nothing in this post actually supports the "Israel is an ethnostate" claim, only attacks imaginary versions of the opposition with imaginary reasons for disagreement.
My guess is that you're actually a Zionist or a libtard (or a full fledged retard) if you defend the state of Israel and say they don't want an ethnostate. That's just disingenuous. Lol
"Everyone has seen the evidence I have and secretly agrees with me, they just won't admit it. I am very logical."
If you went to a bar and the bartender was a mousegirl you could ask for a drink and she would balance it on her head and say "for you, it's on the mouse"
the crazy thing about this is that it took one single word to turn it horny. coulda been a normal cute post. coulda taken the high road & conjured a delightful image of a mouse scampering down the bar with a beer ten times its size balanced on its head. but you had to say "mousegirl" and not "mouse." don't pretend this isn't what's going on either i know the score i know what's up. i'm familiar with this sort of semantic trick. you want to fuck down on an anime girl with certain characteristics of a rodent and everyone's gotta know.
>10 hours ago
>deactivated
in retrospect it's even crazier that the reason "girl" set this guy off was because it tangentially invoked the specter of the japanese
Meanwhile, us actual rodent girls get by without any problems.
Which would be the better way to live?
Having to work a job under late capitalism just to buy food and shelter
Everyone gets their own home and garden and grows what they need
Which would be the better way to live?
Having to work a job under late capitalism just to buy food and shelter
Everyone gets their own home and garden and grows what they need
"Everyone gets their own home" and who's building the homes? What kind of homes? Just the bare necessities? Everyone gets a flat that has a bed, bathroom, and kitchen area?
"Grows what they need" from a garden? What are we, vegans???? Vegans who all have the skill and self-discipline to maintain a food garden???
What about the people who can't grow their own food? You expect someone who can't even walk to be out there working in a garden every day??
And what about things we don't need, but want? If I want a cake now, if I had a job, I could go to the store and buy one. Or buy the ingredients to make one.
I can't do that under what the question submitter obviously believes to be the better option.
In a weirdly utopic society where everyone is willing and able and happy to just survive with what they need, there'd be no disabled people, or lazy people(like me), or people with weird allergies like the sun or grass or bugs. We'd all eat vegetables and we'd all be FREEEEE from capitalism to spend our times tending to our gardens every day to make sure we have enough to eat.
The only positive is everyone gets a home, but even then, the houses would most definitely be absolutely shitty houses.
If I'm taking this too seriously, then well yeah obviously. It pisses me off.
I really like winnie the pooh, Can you draw winnie the pooh pleaseeeeee
Happy 10 year anniversary to this absolutely foundational post
#really cannot emphasize enough how much iguanamouth changed the site’s sense of humor and therefore the timeline of the western world
Will humanity ever be free of the influence of Edna Mode? Can any of us so much as consider the character design for a hero or villain without her manifesting in the room, fully aware of our sins?
You know what, another layer of difficulty is when you’re thinking about villains, and the wise words of Megamind come into your head. You don’t just want your child to be just a regular villain. But how do you make your villain a Supervillain with no cape? Where is the drama? But Edna says no capes, you must deny them the flair. It is impossible to please them both, and it’s tearing this family apart.
you. you get it.
(tags via @jeremiahsmysteriosotouch)
Counteroffer: Big dramatic cloak to protect your identity that you drop on the floor before every fight
#there are two wolves inside you #one is edna mode #the other is megamind (@remnantofahero)
I can’t believe the compromise is Obi-Wan Kenobi
“No capes!”
“Game on, then.”
Okay, but I love that Gandalf is just dropping his cloak to reveal another, slightly smaller cloak underneath it.
World Heritage Post
Guilty Gear -STRIVE- - Amor-clad Faith (Potemkin’s Theme)
Americans, be warned: Age verification is identity verification.
This piece explains how age verification will impact your privacy.
......suddenly struck by the idea for a piece of worldbuilding of "fae don't like iron bc it is the most stable element*"
*as in elements higher you can extract energy via fission and lower you can extract energy via fusion but iron itself there is no excess binding energy to extract at all
YOU. YOU SEE MY VISION.
People: exposure to the fae realms makes you weak and sickly. Because of the fae
The fae: wow wow wow i LOVE uranium!!!! We should put it ALLLL over our land!!! This won't cause problems!
You can never leave after eating fae food because you get radiation poisoning and also you're now a walking biohazard
The tinkerbell chernobyl post strikes
I wasn't expecting it to take this long, but after a million distractions, I'm back to going through the LotR audio commentaries and taking note of any interesting tidbits I haven't heard before.
Please enjoy my notes on the RotK design team commentary with Richard Taylor, Tania Rodger, Grant Major, Alan Lee, John Howe, Dan Hennah, and Chris Hennah:
They had to make Deagol's ears out of waterproof gelatin rather than latex because he was going to fall in the water, and the normal latex ears would have come off. I guess they must have done the same any other time a Hobbit got submerged, but they didn't say that.
The fish that Gollum eats at the beginning is made from some kind of edible gelatin so he could actually bite into it. They also had another prop fish that wasn't edible that they gave Andy Serkis to keep at the end XD
The little stone hollow thing where Frodo and Sam are sleeping for their first scene in the movie was a set they built with a removable back wall so they could get a camera in to shoot it from the back as well as the front. Why did I never think of that before?
There were a couple of extra shots they needed of Orthanc in the background to finish up the movie, but they hadn't managed to get the footage from the miniatures (and I guess the miniatures were gone by that point? idk). So they took one of the model collectibles Weta had made and took some photos of it out in the parking lot XD
Whoooooaaaa! Okay, so Alan Lee talks about how, in legends, they say that you have to kill a wizard three times for him to stay dead. And Saruman dies "three times" - first he's stabbed, then he's impaled, then he's drowned. So Saruman is dead dead. Dare I say it? This is...I think this is a better death than the one in the book ._.
They even put carvings on the crossbeams underneath the seats of the chairs in Edoras! You are never ever going to see them, but that was their dedication to making everything feel authentic. That's what sets this apart from so many fantasy movies and shows made these days.
Red in the costumes is meant to suggest royalty. That's why Aragorn, Boromir, Theoden, and Theodred all have red in their costumes - as well as Bilbo and Frodo! You're meant to look at someone wearing red and unconsciously think, "there's something regal about them."
John Howe points out that you probably wouldn't ever reforge a sword like they do with Narsil, at least not in the sense of putting the pieces back together, because it wouldn't be as strong as it was originally. (You could melt it down and start over again, of course.) But, he reminds us, these are the Elves, and it's more of a symbolic thing anyway.
The great hall in Minas Tirith was inspired by Charlemagne's chapel (and Byzantine architecture was one of the main influences on the design of Gondor in general).
The statue of the king in Ithilien was made out of polystyrene, which you would think would be pretty light, but it was so huge it was actually very heavy. They had to transport it to the location in three pieces: the base, the body, and the head. And to lift one on top of each other, they had to rig a sort of pulley system over the limb of a tree, using a four-wheel drive truck to pull it. But they discovered that the first truck wasn't getting enough traction, so they hooked a second truck up to it, and ended up pulling the first truck up into the air along with the statue!
They created fourteen new weapons just to put in the background of the armory in the scene where the Witch-King is getting ready for battle @_@
John Howe said that his inspiration for Minas Morgul was...getting his wisdom teeth pulled??? He describes a metal clamp digging into the perfectly healthy enamel of his tooth to pull it out, and draws a parallel to the metal pieces the orcs fitted to the top of the pristine white parapets, staining and violating them. Um...thanks, I could've done without that visual, John.
I can't believe I never thought about this before, but there's a little wooden roof over the pile of wood for the beacon that Pippin lights. The reasoning behind that is you need some kind of cover to keep the wood more or less dry for when it needs to be lit in an emergency. The beacon will burn away the wooden roof, but it can be replaced easily enough, and it's worth it to be able to quickly light the beacon.
A lot of the saddles they used were ordered from the Indian military, because they had a good, old-fashioned sort of look to them. Then they would add onto the saddles with things that would make them look distinctly Rohirric, rather than Indian.
Alan Lee's daughter worked on some of the figures in the doors of Minas Tirith!
John Howe goes off on this whole tangent about how there's no religion or religious structures in Middle-Earth, and why that might be, but the whole time I was just sitting there going, "...have you never read The Silmarillion????"
Because they had to make over a hundred suits of Gondorian armor, other than the hero suits, they couldn't make each one exactly the right size for the man who would wear it, so the casting department had to only get actors within a certain range of size. They also built the suits of armor with sliding pieces, so they could be somewhat fitted to different sizes.
The horses started out as being part of the art department's responsibility, but as time went on, there were just so many horses they had to keep track of (and the various liveries they would have to be fitted out with) that they had to make a separate horse department to oversee it all.
Because so much of the movie was filmed on-location, in some very remote locations, they had to make a sort of caravan of mobile repair stations that they could take with them. They had all the tools and crew necessary on hand wherever they went so they could repair broken props or ripped costumes, reapply makeup for gore and injuries, take nicks out of the edge of weapons.... It was really like moving an army around!
For the dream where the Evenstar breaks, they made a version of it that was five times bigger than normal, out of a very brittle resin. Then they made an oversized section of the floor and dropped it from a great height so it would completely shatter in a dramatic way like that.
Anduril was John Howe's design. He based it on a sword belonging to a friend of his in Germany, which to him is the ideal sword, the most beautiful sword. He also talked a bit about how Men were taller and bigger in the First and Second Ages, so their swords would have been longer.
John Howe: "Why do people criticize Tolkien for not developing his characters sufficiently? I cannot fathom that kind of criticism. I think it's done by people who don't read between the lines."
Richard Taylor said they had a lot of fun gathering up all the skulls after each take in the Paths of the Dead to put back up at the top so they could be poured down again. Apparently Viggo liked to gather them up and try to throw them at the crew members! "Many hours of skullduggery was to be had," as Richard put it XD
Apparently, they'd made dozens of really finely detailed silicone heads to be lobbed over the wall of Minas Tirith, but then all but one of them were stolen! So they had to quickly put together some crude latex ones to use in the shoot instead (one of which the mayor of Wellington threw). They didn't talk about this, but I'm assuming the one good head that was left is the one that gets a close-up. You have to wonder who out there was sitting around with a bunch of highly realistic latex severed heads in his basement or something....
While most of the siege towers are miniatures or CG, they built the top third of one and put it on tracks so they could move it up against the wall. They built the set with breakable ramparts for when the little drawbridge thing crashes down.
They had the same trouble in Minas Tirith that they did in Helm's Deep, with the battering ram being too heavy for the stunties to lift. But they never actually explained how they got around that problem, if it was the same solution or not :/ All they said was that they had replaceable panels in the doors, in case they were damaged by the battering ram.
In order to make Shelob's webs, they had to heat up two polymers and mix them together to make the stringy, sticky material. In order to mix them, they had to be heated up to 220 degrees C, but if they got up to 228 degrees, they would burst into flame @_@ After they were heated and mixed, they would dribble the mixture on top of a vat of water, where it would cool in spiderweb-like shapes. Then they would lift it out on a frame, and they could carefully place it on the set. One time, the polymers did burst into flame, and they were running out of fire extinguishers to put it out! O.O Eventually, they did call the fire department, who said they'd done everything the fire department would have done. They got the fire put out, but it was a nerve-wracking moment, because the room where they were making the webs was connected to the studio, so it could have been disastrous D:
Bernard Shaw apparently got the idea to do that whole bit where he knocks his sword against the row of spears when he saw the collection of spears all lined up in a row in the art department.
The "oil" that Denethor pours over himself and Faramir is a mixture of glycerin and water. (I always wonder about these things, so I'm really glad they mentioned it.)
When they were filming the pyre scene, they had a silicone dummy for Faramir on the burning pyre. Apparently somebody on the crew brought "David Wenham" a cup of coffee over because they thought he'd fallen asleep on the side of the set, only to discover that it was a dummy! XD
The horse rig they made for close-up work of people on horseback got affectionately nicknamed "the Phony Pony." The first day they brought it on set, Peter Jackson got up on it and "rode" the horse, making the whole crew laugh XD
One of the ideas that Peter Jackson came up with for the mumakil in a brainstorming session (which Richard Taylor says he's still not sure if PJ was serious about or not) was that they could suck up several riders in its trunk and then fire them out like bullets. I'm...really glad they didn't go with that, whether PJ was serious or not <_<
Alan Lee says that the first time he saw the dead mumakil that Weta made for the set, the body was hollow, and some of the crew had set up a TV inside it and were watching a rugby game XD
The last miniature they built for LotR was the Minas Tirith docks where the Corsair ships come in. It kept getting put off until almost the end of the shoot, so they only had five days to put it together! @_@
All of the dead horses are fake, of course, so Weta had to make them all. They were made of lightweight material, so each day you'd see the set dressers just kind of casually carrying in a whole dead horse and then picking one up from the battlefield afterwards like it's no big deal. They had to do a lot of repairs to the dead horses, because the legs and ears kept falling off or getting bent the wrong way XD
The stone Watchers in Cirith Ungol have Maori influence in their design. I wish they'd talked about that in more detail, but it was just mentioned in passing.
They were concerned about the various copies of the One Ring being stolen, so they kept it in a lunchbox that was labeled "Screws."
The scene where Frodo and Sam join the orc convoy was filmed on location up on a mountain, so they had to deal with a whole bunch of extras in extensive prosthetics and armor, which would make them sweat while they were moving around, but then when the camera wasn't rolling, it would be a challenge to keep them warm. The way they did most of the orcs was that they wore a rubber mask and then a helmet, and they would need to take them off at regular intervals so the actors could get some air. So in between takes, after the director called, "Cut!" there would also be a cry of, "Heads off!" That meant the dressers would have to rush into the crowd and quickly take off the extras' helmets and masks XD
Because the crew was committed to not damaging any of the flora and fauna in the places where they were filming, even in the location that became the plains of Mordor that Frodo and Sam struggle across, there were little flowers and moss that they wanted to protect (and it was a national park). So they would lay down carpets on the ground for people to walk on, so they wouldn't damage the plant life. I'm sure that made for a strange sight, Frodo and Sam struggling in tattered clothing over rocks and boulders, surrounded by perfectly ordinary rugs XD
To do the decapitation of the Mouth of Sauron, they had a headless dummy sitting there, and Viggo would swipe his sword where the head should be. Then Weta Digital put in the head afterwards.
The lava in Mount Doom was mostly a miniature (except for the set where Sean and Elijah did their part), made from methyl cellulose and other things to make it look like lava. They set it up on a table that they would tilt so it would flow down around the model boulders made from urethane.
Richard Taylor said that, at that time, no one had really done a very good CG bird, so he was especially pleased at how the eagles turned out.
There were about 400 people working in the art department total, and most of them had never worked in the film industry before! @_@
Ngila Dickson's philosophy for the Elves was that none of their "crowns" or headpieces would go upwards, but would fit close around their heads and then go down. That's one of those things I've subconsciously noticed all these years, but never really thought about before.
Apparently, a little bit of the graphite used on Aragorn's armor in the coronation scene kind of puffed out when he and Arwen go in for their kiss, and got on Arwen's dress D: And some well-meaning person tried to rub it off, but only succeeded in spreading it around further, thus ruining the dress. And most of the female characters only had one copy of each costume, because all except for Eowyn don't see battle and thus don't need different versions with varying amounts of wear and tear. They're just made to wear in one or two scenes of them looking pretty and walking through a room. But alas, that lovely green dress was ruined.
They didn't have much time with Sir Ian Holm, so they only had a week to get a mold of his face and make the old-age prosthetics for the Grey Havens. But then word came down that he didn't want to have prosthetics, so they were to just make him look old with makeup. They were really disappointed, but then on the day, Ian Holm saw the prosthetics sitting off in the corner and asked what it was. When they explained, he said it wasn't true, and insisted on them putting the prosthetics on instead.
One thing that was really impressed upon me during this whole commentary (over all three movies) was just how much love and joy all of the crew had for the project. Sometimes you watch a movie or read a book that really means a lot to you, that's changed your life, and you wonder if the people who made it fully grasp what a beautiful thing they've created. These people know. They were fully aware, from start to finish, that they were making something truly great and worthy of praise. And I think that's beautiful.
What I picture when I hear “20 year old games”
vs
Games that are actually going to be 20 years old in 2026
Just to make y’all feel even more old, here are some games that are going to be 10 years old in 2026:
