ROTK Premiere, Wellington NZ (pics)

[iNSaNiTy]

Just got back from Wellington after the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King premiere. There were apparently 125,000 people on the streets, and Wellington is a city of 400,000. I don't think I've ever seen this many people in there before, and doubt I ever will again, absolutely insane atmosphere.

The Embassy Theatre, over 80 years old, and refurbished especially for the ROTK premiere.

I rolled up near the start of the parade and hour and a half before it started and managed to get a reasonable position near the start of the parade, and by the time the parade started there was about 2 or 3 lines deep of people on each side, jostling to catch a view of the stars, and making for some sketchy photos. Apologies for the blurryness of some of the photos, I'm not terribly familiar with this camera, and the army of people behind me didn't make it terribly easy to get still shots.

The parade was lead by a band of Maori's, didn't get to ask them if they knew our friend, the screaming Maori ;-D

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/maoris.jpg

Next along came THE MAN, Peter Jackson.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/peterjackson.jpg

The first of the costumed parading people

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/soldiers.jpg

Not far behind was Viggo Mortensen aka Aragorn, and someone else, possibly Howard Shore, the man behind the Rings music?

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/viggo.jpg

Dominic Monaghan (Merry) and Billy Boyd (Pippin)

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/hobbits.jpg

Grarrrghrhhh! Don't mess with this chap

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/gragh.jpg

Liv Tyler (Arwen) and Orlando Bloom (Legolas), with Orlando displaying his love for NZ

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/arwenlegolas.jpg

Liv and Orlando again, Liv looking oh-so-tasty and Orlando looking every inch the movie-star.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/arwenlegolas2.jpg

Bad photo of Elijah Wood (Frodo) and Andy Serkis (Gollum) due to a procession of less interesting asshats in the way.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/frodo.jpg

Couple of ring-wraiths chilling on some horses.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/blurryringwraith.jpg

Some guy gripping his own pole

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/men.jpg

John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) who happens to look pretty much like Pavaroti when he isn't dressed up like Gimli, and Sean Astin (Sam).

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/gimli.jpg

Ian McKellen (Gandalf) waving to the crowd.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/gandalf.jpg

Lord of the Rings now featuring Cone-Heads.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/soldiers2.jpg

Onoes, more fiesty looking people.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/gragh2.jpg

After walking quickly through the city for a while to catch up to the parade further along, I snapped this photo of a pretty reasonable crowd enjoying the parade.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/crowd2.jpg

This is where all the stars are going to be watching the premiere, the Embassy Theatre. Complete with enormous winged creature.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/embassy.jpg

After getting to this point, there was no way I was going to get anywhere near to getting into a position to see the red carpet area where the Stars were signing autographs and giving interviews, so I headed to grab a goodly meal. After the meal, to punish myself for eating far too much, I decided to head up Mount Victoria and grab a few photos of Wellington since it was such a nice day.

Our brand new beach, recently created from sand brought in from the South Island, a nice alternative to the stoney beach we had before this.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/wellingtonbeach.jpg

A few shots from the top of Mount Victoria looking at various parts of Wellington.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/wellingtonview.jpg

To the mid left of the pic you can see the red carpet, there was 450 meters of it, or something crazy like that. Even that far away, I could quite easily here all the cheering from down there.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/wellingtonview2.jpg

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/wellingtonwaterfront.jpg

Different view of wellington from further north, closer to where I live.

http://parallax.gamers.tv/cspoon/rotk/wellingtonharbour.jpg

Oh yeah, one more thing. What the fuck.

Goatse.is.everywhere

Thats all the pics I got, pity many of them weren't better but oh well.

I'll leave you with this pic taken by someone other than me, a nice panorama of the red carpet.

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/menace/lotr_pano.jpg

Edit: Bring on December 18th, this shit is going to rock.

 

[Doaln]

cool beans.

 

[Spexx]

Definetly sweet. Not bad pics either.

 

[kwago]

sweeeeeeeeek

 

[Crazy8]

Awesome!

 

[[LAPD]Cheetah]

tight as hell.. pics are small though ;/

 

[kwago]

yeah, need full size liv tyler pics plz

 

[Acer]

nice pics man..i hate when people dont resize their pics from digicams, and they post these 2048 x 1536 (or bigger) pics and i have to scroll like 50 feet...



for resizing

 

[ragingbunny]

fuckin nice, i wanna move there now, any downsides to the place?

 

[blazore]

fuck dude, that is elite

 

[Alekhine]

fuckin nice, i wanna move there now, any downsides to the place?

Become a civil engineer or a millionaire or something. Getting a NZ work visa is notoriously difficult, from what I hear. I'd love to live there too, but I'm just a music teacher.

 

[|zVx|Teflon]

you should have waited till after the parade..then go to where all the guys in costumes go to hang out.(they prob wont sit through a 3 hour movie in those things) then beat one of them up and steal their armor and swords and shit.

 

[iNSaNiTy]

I'll upload some 1600's as well if people want them, since I kind of forget that not everyone runs desktop resolutions as low as me :-D

NZ is a pretty cool place to live. Beautiful scenery is so easily accessible, the air is clean, and the people are friend (on the whole ) I personally love Wellington, having spent my whole life living in Wellington, I've never lived in a bigger city so its hard to compare. If you love cafe's, restaurants, numerous inner-city bars, theatre and arts, and generally pretty much most things decent sized cities have, Wellington is pretty sweet.

It's often compared to a scaled up european village in terms of atmosphere.

 

[iNSaNiTy]

Oh yeah, while its a great place to live, for earning potential and generally the amount you earn is probably quite a bit lower than you'd get in the US.

 

[Alekhine]

Oh yeah, while its a great place to live, for earning potential and generally the amount you earn is probably quite a bit lower than you'd get in the US.

True, but some Americans aren't as money-oriented as others. I'd personally trade in my duckets for quality living in a nicer cultural environment any day. Buffalo, NY sucks x 100000000.

 

[Strega]

Amazing.

 

[Hugo]

Those pictures were great, I really emjoyed them. I too feel the inclination to move to NZ, it looks so pleasant. How are speeding laws?

 

[Sascha]

beef titan

 

[Doaln]

k wait, i just re-noticed this. what do you mean goatse is everywhere? like goatse is in shop windows or something?

 

[Crazy8]

If the US ever went to total crap, I would move to New Zealand in a heartbeat.