Movie Magic: Wolverine

So why am I putting a big action, special effects heavy flic in my movie magic section? Well because in this case I got to see behind the curtain for a bit! I got to witness some of the magic that brings a movie to life!

No idea what I'm talking about? No worries, I'll explain a bit better! ;o)

Last year (Feb'08) we had a family vacation visiting my sister in New Zealand (btw, GORGEOUS country! the movies don't do it justice). While we were in the South Island, just south of Queenstown, my sister and I went on a horseback riding promenade in an area known as "Paradise". My sister would have prefered the other option which was down in the valley along the riverbed and allowed for places to gallop, but how could I turn down a ride through the birch wood of Lothlorien?! Yup, quite a few scenes from Lord of the Rings were filmed in those woods!!! (some of Lothlorien, Boromir's death... also early scenes from Prince Caspian, when he falls off his horse).
After crossing through the woods we ended up on a promontoir looking over a glacial river zig-zagging through morain deposits: the location for the White Tower!!! And the early scenes from Willow! So much fun being able to recognise locations like that from what you've seen on-screen!

Wait, what does this have to do with Wolverine again? Well, turns out they were filming it right then and there!!! We drove over a dirt road through the woods to get to the horses... well we drove right by Hugh Jackman!!! OMG!!! and my damn camera was too slow on the zoom-in process.... They were filming the motorcycle vs jeep chase sequence (gorgeous bike btw!).
And the place we started riding? Well the horses were pasturing right next to the barn featured in the film (where a naked Logan takes refuge after his adamantium treatment), a barn that was built specially for the film (boom!) I might add... ;o).
On the drive out of there we got our second glimpse of the man himself in a tent, this time my camera was slightly less slow, but still not fast enough (he's there lurking in the shadows).
Then with the excitement of it all in the afternoon we went back to that area with my parents (in the car) hoping to see more. And we got up as close as they'd let us to a helicopter tied between two cranes (for the purpose of crashing it, more BOOM!).

Our rental car couldn't deal with the rocks and ditches any more so we had to head back out to civilisation but we were pretty excited with just that, our first witnessing of a movie in the making! :o)

Oh, and what did I think of the movie itself? of Wolverine? (finally saw it this weekend with my Dad) Well, in between having fun spotting the stuff we saw on sight a year ago, I thought it was a blast! Doesn't pretend to be anymore than it is: a big special effects movie with a great character and quite a few winks to the fans (Scott Summers as a kid? that voice in his head and the bald guy?). The first two X-Men movies were in a whole other league than this (their stories actually had a meaning, and I'd rather not think about the third), but this is still great to help fill in some of the blanks in a favourite mysterious character. And hey, any chance to see Hugh Jackman running around in his birthday suit gets an A+ from me! ;o)

And as a post-script, just to prove we were there:unfortunately you can't make out our trademark red hair under those horrid riding helments! :p