Every so often, I write articles for David Farrier’s Webworm. This is one of the weirder ones, where I sat through more than 11 hours of the Lord of the Rings Extended Versions back-to-back-to-back at The Astor. This was originally published on 23 March 2024.
Here is an excerpt:
A little more than 20 years ago, a teenaged JJW was part of the throng — which from drone’s eye view would have resembled an Orc army — lining Courtenay Place as all the stars from the Lord of the Rings trilogy wended their way down the extravagantly long red carpet towards the Embassy Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand.
In the past two decades I have taken every opportunity to reminisce about how I shook Elijah — perhaps a distant cousin of mine? — Wood’s hand, got a hug from Liv Tyler — still in love with you, Liv — and stole a corflute poster from the temporary fencing (I wonder where that ended up).
And of course I take every opportunity to re-watch the trilogy that I can. It’s a huge part of many Kiwi Millennials formative years and an even bigger part of New Zealand’s history. I have been known to just put it on at odd times, for example on what was supposed to be a nice holiday with friends, I had it running in the background (sorry, not sorry).
