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The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the The King premiere

LIVE FROM WELLINGTON - from Alison Rodgers who attended the premiere of the third part of LOTR - The Return of the The King…

It's Monday the first of December in the Capital City of Middle-Earth, and you can't open your eyes without seeing someone walk by with pointy ears or thick and curly foot hair. There's even a Lady Galadriel look-alike walking up Lambton Quay with two ents and an orc for her escort, and man with a sign hanging round his neck "Peter Jackson impersonator", as if you couldn't tell from the casual clothes and hairdo.

Wellington is humming, and the tune is the theme music of Lord of the Rings. Banners showing the faces of characters are hung from every lamppost along the parade route. Every second shop has a display in the window; I see orc masks on mannequins; "No admittance except on lingerie business" in the window of an underwear shop; hand painted banners and action figures galore; and posters posters posters!

By 8:00 am there are already a thousand people packed into Courtney place to get as close as possible to the red carpet, (and far more importantly, for many, within touching distance of the stars…)

And yes, my right hand has personally touched the hands of Dominic Monaghan (Merry) and Andy Serkis (Gollum/Smeagol) who were leaning out of their cars to do so *big grins*.

Free tickertape has been distributed throughout the roadside crowds, as well as flags showing the Air New Zealand plane with Frodo and Sam on the side. The same plane is due to do a low-level fly-over during the parade at 3:45 pm. Sean Astin (Sam) seemed fascinated with this, elbowing John Ryse-Davies (Gimli) and pointing into the sky as the plane flew over head. Look everyone! It's me!

By 3:30, official starting time, the streets are lined with fans and the most repeated phrase is something like "they'recomingthey'recomingOmigodSQUEEE!"

Peter Jackson's escort of honour, a group of Maori warriors, lead the way down the street, with Wellington's home grown world famous director following behind, his hand-held camera filming the crowd. A group of bouncy hobbits waves at the crowd; Gondorian rangers pointedly ignore us; an Uruk-hai almost takes off my head with his axe; two Nazgul loom on their huge black mounts; and two small Rohirrim pages follow behind two knights of Rohan, shovels and wheelbarrow handy for horsy business.

And then there were the stars themselves! Along with some of the most important people involved with the trilogy, Howard Shore, Philippa Boyens, and Richard Taylor among them. They all drove slowly by in open topped cars, waving and reaching out to touch the crowd, until they reached the start of the red carpet, and began autographing books and flags, and, in the case of Viggo Mortenson (Aragorn), trying to catch thrown tickertape in their mouths and tickling camera men. The crowd was close to 10 000 strong, and all cheered at Peter Jackson's speech, before the portions of cast and crew entered the re-done Embassy theatre, watched over by a huge fell beast and black rider, to view the completed masterpiece that is the final movie of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Return of the King.

The personal highest point came on Saturday night, at the Howard Shore and NZSO concert in the Michael Fowler Centre. The music was absolutely fantastic and roused a solid five minutes- at least- of applause and a standing ovation from the audience. I was also surrounded by stars. Sean Astin was sitting four rows in front of me; Orlando Bloom across the aisle, not directly though; Peter Jackson, Elijah Wood (Frodo) and Billy Boyd (Pippin) were another aisle across- and I saw Elijah Wood biting his nails in person. Andy Serkis and John Ryse-Davies were also in the audience, along with Sir Ian McKellen.

Being surrounded by stars was awesome, and I ambushed Sean Astin at intermission before he could make it into the larger crowd waiting for an autograph. Speaking to him was very cool, he's so nice! And now I'm the proud owner of his autograph, the pen he used, and the autograph of John Ryse-Davies, who was surrounded by a knot of fans in the foyer and very easy to spot in the crowd - unlike Billy Boyd, who was too short to find in the inadequate length of time we were given for intermission.

And then, afterwards, they all crept out the back door to avoid signing autographs for the next three hours, which they couldn't be blamed for, from a point of view of one of the swarm.

The weekend was packed with anything and everything ring-shaped; Wellington had completely embraced the trilogy and it showed, shining outwardly not unlike the sparkly whiteness of Gandalf's new look, but with the warmth of Shire hearth fires.