Greg Dixon: Seeking out the unsung heroes

Well, what a happy bunch of hobbits we're all set be. With the final part of The Lord Of The Rings seemingly about to return with the king of all cinema prizes - an Oscar for best picture - the country is likely to have the best bit of news in six months.

And with flooding of Biblical proportions in the southern North Island and an apparent race relations nightmare unfolding, the country could really use something to feel good about. We need a win at the Academy Awards on March 1 (NZ time).

I use the word "we" deliberately. The sense of ownership the country feels for Peter Jackson's fantasy trilogy - made, remember, with American money and featuring no Kiwis in major roles - has become a phenomenon since the first film was released in 2001.

It's as if we are all proud parents basking in the reflected glory of a successful child we had no part in rearing.

Of course, some of us were involved in creating this movie mega-hit, and not just the local actors in bit parts and tech-heads at Weta. Some of us did catering. Others made sure the actors had portable toilets on location.

It's these mostly un-credited contributors that tonight's DNZ documentary The Real Middle Earth (8.35pm, TV One) seeks out. (Small point: in J.R.R. Tolkien's books it is Middle-earth not Middle Earth.)

Host Jim Hickey, erstwhile weatherman to Middle-earth, gads about the country, looking for the film's locations and the little hobbits who helped while the film-makers were in town.

The first visit is to Matamata. Says Hickey: "When the big movie came to town, the small community got right into the spirit of things, even adopting the name Hobbiton. You can even buy Hobbiton burgers ... "

That pretty much sums up the tone of the show, which avoids stating that a hell of a lot of people are now trying to make a hell of a lot of money off the back of these films.

As well, although produced by Hickey's Rustic Road production company for TV One, the script frequently betrays the maker's hope they will be able to flog the programme overseas.

From Matamata, the show skips lightly from Mt Ruapehu to Petone, Nelson and Queenstown, talking to ring-makers here and extras there. Hickey has also interviewed director Peter Jackson. But in total, the show owes a clear debt to Ian Brodie's Lord Of The Rings Location Guidebook.

However, there are some amusing moments as the show ticks off the film's locales. One of the Matamata Hobbiton extras observes that, during filming, "they were always putting mud on us".

He also relates how he had to pull out the same weed for repeated takes until the weed was stuffed but the director happy - such is the banal stuff of film-making.

But mostly The Real Middle Earth has the air about it of a 50s-era Film Unit documentary, all happy, smiling people and jolly good fun.

Indeed, the programme paints New Zealanders' contributions to this immense, impressive project as a sort of all-in working-bee. It's as if, like the Lions Club, we all turned up at the local primary school, rolled up our selves and got stuck in, building the equivalent of an enormous jungle-gym.

But beyond the fab scenery and hard yakka from the happy locals, there are few real facts. Some interviewees give anecdotal evidence of a rise in tourism on the back of the films.

But the programme-makers don't seem to have bothered to talk to Tourism New Zealand to firm up exactly what the films have meant in visitor numbers and tourist dollars.

The show might also have mentioned how much Jackson and co spent on paying all these mum and pop outfits, extras and caterers - this after all is a franchise that has made, so far, something in the order of $5 billion at box offices around the world.

The Lord Of The Rings should be celebrated, of course.

The small and large efforts of New Zealanders to make it should be acknowledged, too.

But The Real Middle Earth feels like just another attempt to flog Hobbiton burgers to the passing traffic.


Herald Feature: Lord of the Rings