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As someone who went to Aotearoa New Zealand for the first time, and as someone who grew up with the books and movies, I had to visit Hobbiton.
Or, rather, I should say I had to visit The Hobbiton™ Movie Set. When J.R.R. Tolkein died, his intellectual property (the books he wrote, the characters he created, and the settings therein -- including Hobbiton) were all overseen by the Tolkein Estate. We were surprised that none of the tour guides were wearing any styled cosplays or in-fiction costumes of any kind -- just matching, red-and-white checkered button-downs to help them stand out from the crowd. If this place was being called Hobbiton, if there was a Hobbiton sign, and if everyone was coming here because of having seen the movies, then why not dress up to sell the experience the way another theme park might?
On the Hobbiton Movie Set's website, there's a disclaimer at the bottom reading:
SHIRE TOURS, SHIRE’S REST, MIDDLE-EARTH, GREEN DRAGON, HOBBITON, THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS and the characters, places, items and events therein, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Middle-earth Enterprises, LLC and used under license by Rings Scenic Tours Limited and Wingnut Film Productions Limited, which are independently owned and operated. All rights reserved
I'm not an expert on IP law, but I found the careful way in which this tour used such legally-defined terminology to be both fascinating and goofy. To me, it seems like the touring company really wanted this experience to be similar to theme parks based around other movie properties: your Star Wars Galaxy's Edges or your Transphobic Wizarding Worlds. That said, there's clearly a balance to be struck between:
- The corporation that owns the trademarks to the Lord of the Rings franchise, Middle-earth Enterprises, LLC
- The corporations that run the tours, Rings Scenic Tours Limited and Wingnut Film Productions Limited
- The farmers that own the land where the tours are happening, the Alexander Family
Digging into that third one for a second: as part of filming those movies, the location scouts for the movies found the farm as they were aerially traveling over New Zealand while looking for "rolling green hills, a big tree, and a big lake" to match the descriptions from the books. They found the sheep farm of the Alexander family, which had all three, and contacted the matriarch and owner of the land. Over the course of the filming of the original trilogy, additional trees both real and fake were transplanted and installed, the Hobbit hole facades were constructed, and all exterior shots of the Hobbit area were filmed there. There were some that were built regular size and some that were smaller (like 80% or 40%) to allow for the illusory look of Gandalf towering over the door to Bag End.[1] They even lit the actual Green Dragon Inn set on fire and let it burn completely to the ground to film the shot where Galadriel shows Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring "what will happen if your journey fails."
When the Fellowship of the Ring movie came out in 2001, our tour guide mentioned that fans on the internet managed to triangulate where the filming took place, traveled to New Zealand, hopped the fences dressed as Hobbits, and according to our guide, "were invited in by the Alexander family for a drink, once they realized the fans didn't mean any trouble and weren't there to rob the place." By 2002 the Alexander family began doing tours of what was left of the movie set.
When the Hobbit triology began production, they once again needed a set for Hobbiton, so they contacted the Alexander family, and this time around it was negotiated that the Hobbit holes needed to be more permanently built out. This is what led to where we're at now: a tour company is allowed to go onto the Alexander farmland under strict supervision of tour guides so that they can show tourists the Hobbiton movie set and allow pictures that look like you went to the actual fictional place of Hobbiton. This also has included the building out of interiors of a couple of dwellings to allow tours to go through.
When it came time to go to the gift shop and see if there were any souvenirs, we noticed that all of the stuff that was specifically referencing anything from the tour said "Hobbiton Movie Tours" or "I visited the Hobbiton Movie Set" on them. This was all next to licensed LOTR merch of action figures or maps or whatever that you might find being sold at a hobby store over the last two decades. The more I kept looking around, the more I realized how specific the language had to be for this theme park movie set tour to be what I assume was in legal compliance with trademarks and IP law.[2]
Contrasting that with how I heard folks from A More Civilized Age and Jenny Nicholsen talk about the Galactic Starcruiser at Galaxy's Edge, it sounded like Galaxy's Edge was far more of an "immersive theme park experience" to whatever end it was successful. I couldn't help but think "they wanted this Hobbiton Movie Set to be a theme park, but this is as close as they can get for now."
Missing from any of these pictures is the constant chirping of numerous birds who live in the area. Our tour guide also mentioned that during filming of the outdoor scenes, which required microphones to pick up all sorts of noises from the actors and props, they needed a way to keep birds out of the shots and from making too much noise in the background. To solve this, they hired a falconer to come on set with a raptor for the duration of filming. Doing this kept all the birds away until the falconer left so that the crew could get clean takes. I thought that was a fun and non-damaging way to fix their problem temporarily, which was nice to see after hearing so much about how previous wildlife problems had been solved™ by humans historically.
While there were lots of birds on the Hobbiton Movie Set, I didn't capture photos of any that were endemic to New Zealand in this part of the trip.[3] Instead, here's a photo of a white-faced heron I saw later on. They're endemic to Australasia, which is again technically broader than I've been aiming for, but the next few will be much more focused, I promise.
It's probably the most common photo shown by people who go there, but here's a bonus photo of Bag End, the dwelling Bilbo left to Frodo at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring. ↩︎
I suppose it could also be to try to legally differentiate for search engine optimization reasons? After all, I guess they got me to talk about it, and maybe it would be a similarly interesting conversation piece if I had a momento that said Hobbiton Movie Set on it? ↩︎
I did see a few mallards, but this post already has too many pictures, so here's a link to a bonus bird photo if you so choose. ↩︎
