There is hardly a film series that has had as much of an impact on me as Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings”. I remember my parents seeing the third part of the series in the cinema in 2003 and enthusiastically talking about it. My father had been a big fan of JRR Tolkien’s novels since he was a teenager and had been looking forward to the film adaptations for years. It was absolutely clear, especially to my mother, that at the age of nine I was too young to go to the cinema. But one day when my father brought home the DVDs of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, my mother could no longer protest. And so we gathered in the living room with my brother, who is two years older than me, to watch the films that still connect us like no other twenty years later.
As theatrical as it may sound, I was enchanted and captivated from the first minute by the story of the ring, the impressive music, the fantastic characters and especially the beautiful landscapes shown in the trilogy. The fact that such landscapes could exist anywhere in the world was absolutely incomprehensible to me at the time and when I first heard the word heard it, it was clear that I had to go there someday. After school, however, I did not join the gap year backpackers who traveled in droves to the other side of the world, but continued my journalism career.
To study in Middle-earth
However, when the opportunity to spend a semester abroad arose during my studies, I remembered the country of my childhood dreams and chose the University of Otago in Dunedin on New Zealand’s South Island. At the time, I had no idea that this journey would be my take on the saga consisting of “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring“, “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” And “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” would change forever and even affect my professional career.
As a parting gift, my college friends from Mainz gave me the only gift suitable for this endeavor: a copy of the One Ring, which I personally placed in Mount Doom (its real name is of course Mount Ngauruhoe) in the Tongariro National Park. New Zealand wanted to throw on the North Island. By then I had actually seen about twenty times from Frodo that it wasn’t that simple. But more about that later…
So my flight finally left for New Zealand and some of the best months of my life were about to begin. Almost every free weekend I made short trips from Dunedin across the South Island, visiting the Fiordland National Park, Christchurch and Canterbury, the west coast and Queenstown with the Southern Alps.
All these trips always mentioned “The Lord of the Rings” and so I booked many a tour that would take me to the most remote places in the country just because they served as filming locations for Peter Jackson’s trilogy. Highlights included the northern part of Queenstown, which served as the backdrop for Saruman’s Tower, as well as the remote filming location of the Rohan capital of Edoras in Canterbury near Christchurch, which also featured the backdrop of Helm’s Deep in the distance.
New Zealanders told me how the filming had taken over the entire country and how almost every resident of Queenstown and Wellington took part in the trilogy as an extra or crew member. All this was music to my ears and inspired me to one day want to be on a film set myself.
After my semester at university was over, I took a month to explore the north of New Zealand’s South Island and North Island. Because there were three absolute “Lord of the Rings” must-sees waiting for me in the north: also the WETA Special Effects Studios in Wellington, Hobbiton and the Shire the infamous Tongariro National Park aka Mordor with Mount Doom, where I wanted to throw the ring in as I followed in Frodo’s footsteps.
Mordor in the dead of winter?
My goal came closer week by week and eventually I rented a hostel in Taupo from where I wanted to start the big business “Mordor”. But all this time, I never considered that one thing could throw my years of planning into disarray. In the walking club at the University of Dunedin they had warned me extensively that there was only one thing that could be really dangerous in New Zealand: the weather. And that should be the case to be in the place that had served as a double for Mordor. There was about 8 inches of snow and ice there and there were storm warnings – after all, it was mid-July, which is the middle of winter in New Zealand.
So now I already had the ring in my luggage and I was already in New Zealand, just a few kilometers from Tongariro National Park – and I still couldn’t get there?! As frivolous as that thought was, I definitely didn’t want to leave my nine-year-old self hanging like that. So I looked for the last drop that presented itself to me – and found a guided day trip to Mount Ngauruhoe with ice axes, snow suits, helmets, spikes and a dozen similarly crazy and suicidal movie nerds, whose dream was to see the arid volcanic landscape alive, even when covered in snow.
The bus to the park left around 5am the next morning. So in the pitch dark I packed my thickest clothes, the ring and my camera and arrived at a small base where my fellow participants and our guide were already waiting for me. Then there was an introduction to how to use an ice axe, how to put the nails under your shoes and when to hold on to the rope of the person in front of you. And then it started.
First through the miles of flat landscape around the mountain, which was still marked by black volcanic rock and only lightly covered in snow. Here we could get acquainted with the area in a comfortable way and we did not have to take out our equipment. This only came into use as we got closer to the mountain, which despite its powder white coating, was clearly recognizable as Mount Doom from “The Lord of the Rings” thanks to its distinctive cone shape. Soon the first slopes arrived, which were snow-covered and icy and eventually required heavy equipment.
Almost as tough as Frodo
Our guide quickly told us that we would only go as far as weather permitted. Without snow and ice, you can usually walk quite a distance through the national park and pass several volcanic lakes, also called the Tongariro Crossing. We weren’t supposed to make it that far for a long time given the circumstances, even though the predicted storm didn’t materialize and there was even sunshine later. Due to the icy trails we still had to turn around after reaching the base of Mount Ngauruhoe. So my epic climb up the mountain of destiny came to nothing because I actually wanted to throw the ring into the volcano vent at the very top.
So I had no choice but to actually buy the ring the mountain, instead to throw the mountain, even though it was planned differently. But the trip did not go entirely according to plan for the traveling companions either. And at least I didn’t have to worry about whether my actions would have been enough to destroy the ring or not. After all, my mission wasn’t to defeat Sauron.
After this suicide trip I felt a bit like Frodo, even though I had to make the hour-long journey back on foot rather than get picked up by a pair of eagles.
Therefore, this experience changed my perspective on filmmaking
To this day, I watch the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy almost every year and cry every time I see the filming locations I visited back then. The work the location scouts put into selecting the motifs; the work it must have taken to obtain permits for these highly protected national parks, bring HUGE film crews to the locations and ultimately create a world of their own…
In New Zealand I gained the deepest respect for filmmaking that I have never had before I understood when I had to work on the set of a Hollywood blockbuster a few years later. Since my trip to Mount Doom in 2016, I have seen not only the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, but also every other film, with completely different eyes.