By now we will all know of a friend of a friend who went to the premiere or a parallel screening. And despite one housewife I met who proclaimed to have enjoyed On Golden Pond more, most have been enraptured by the film, with grown men exuding the excitement of youth.
"Wow, I am going four times, twice when I am straight and twice when I am stoned," one 30-something Peter Pan announced boldly.
Friends who attended the Auckland opening last week exclaimed that to be in peak viewing condition they had to take a little nap beforehand.
Although Peter Jackson, the most popular Kiwi in the world, just wanted to make a great movie rather than having a cultural agenda, unbeknown to him he has delivered something much more - a sense of unity and identity all can buy into.
You see, there are some parallels. We are a country of multicultural differences set against a stunning backdrop.
We have lots of old people, although ours serve a purpose yet to be recognised by the young, and we have cultural idiosyncrasies that extend to a penchant for frequently exposing our big hairy shoeless feet. But we have been grappling with how to draw all this together to form a positive picture that we can express as national culture.
But now The Lord of the Rings has filled in the gaps. We had tried in earnest to achieve enduring global fame using the uninspiring brand name of New Zealand. We have even been spasmodically giving the more legendary Aotearoa tag a bash but that never really caught on.
But by reinventing ourselves as Middle-earth, it all makes sense, plus we are finally assured of our place in the spotlight. Middle-earth? It's the new me.
I, for one, have started to see all New Zealanders in a new light as I spot the elves, dwarfs, hobbits, and wizards among us. I think I have a couple of hobbits fixing my plumbing.
"They are short, weird, barefooted and are accompanied by some sort of miniature dog," offered one of my big folk friends on Friday.
I often bemoan that our nation has the maturity and temperament of a schoolboy who will throw a tantrum, then sulk should the All Blacks fail us. But the charming flipside to being so emotionally volatile is that literally overnight we can enthusiastically pull together to create a buoyant national mood.
Just like the red-socks effect in the America's Cup campaign, cynicism is dropped instantaneously if we are called up to be a good-spirited and wholeheartedly involved Kiwi fan.
This is our form of patriotism (rather more creative than flag-waving, I think). Don't you just love that even the fusty old Post Office at Christmas time has been proudly franking our mail with a Middle-earth mark?
The Lord of the Rings will give us the much-needed confidence boost to see us through summer, as did the America's Cup two years ago. It doesn't matter that the book was British and many of the actors foreign; by now we have all convinced ourselves that this is a 100 per cent Kiwi movie and we are all involved in its success.
Yesterday we said goodbye to our beloved Sir Peter Blake, who united the country in the way we demand of our Kiwi heroes. He was a winner, he did it globally and he did it outdoors.
How bittersweet that at his funeral he was farewelled by a passage from the very book that may, indeed, relieve us of some national grief.
And so we welcome to the front of stage another unashamedly Kiwi hero, who, with his bare-feet and comfortable girth, has a magical vision so potent it has all New Zealanders feeling, once again, somewhat clever to be Kiwi. Arise, Sir Peter.
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