Abandoned Hobbiton from “Lord Of The Rings” taken over by sheep

November 16, 2010 9:41 AM

Abandoned Hobbiton from “Lord Of The Rings” taken over by sheep.
posted by stbalbach (56 comments total)

utilitarian shep are awesome
posted by clavdivs at 9:44 AM on November 16, 2010

Cool, but it needs a soundtrack.
posted by maudlin at 9:45 AM on November 16, 2010

Sometimes I feel like we're just arranging things to confuse the hell out of future archaeologists.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:46 AM on November 16, 2010 [32 favorites]

Those are the funniest pictures! Now cute lil' hamsters in Mordor, please.
posted by Namlit at 9:47 AM on November 16, 2010 [7 favorites]

Aren't they going to need to used that site again for the upcoming Hobbit movies?
posted by octothorpe at 9:47 AM on November 16, 2010

These are clearly out of date. Hobbiton was rebuilt starting over the summer to prepare for The Hobbit, which plans to start filming next Feb.
posted by Plutor at 9:48 AM on November 16, 2010 [4 favorites]

All I could think is that future archaeologists are going to be very confused by the hobbit houses. The sheep in the last picture is soooo cute.
posted by shinyshiny at 9:49 AM on November 16, 2010

We-eel. Those archeologists then would be able to re-construct the whole story as if it was real, right? That's what historians do, make gold out of holes.
posted by Namlit at 9:49 AM on November 16, 2010

Ha, kaibutsu! Didn't preview.
posted by shinyshiny at 9:50 AM on November 16, 2010

Thanks, Plutor. It looks like there are even Hobbiton Tours. Hobbbiton is reborn.
posted by stbalbach at 9:51 AM on November 16, 2010

From the link: Speaking of sheep, in Scotland a farmer has painted his sheep in bright colors to “spice things up”.

So we have brightly colored sheep, and sheep living in Hobbit holes. There has got to be some kind of sitcom possibilities here.
posted by quin at 9:52 AM on November 16, 2010

Either those are some big ol' sheep, or hobbits were a lot smaller than I thought they were. Seriously, look at that first picture with the sheep in the doorway. A hobbit is the same height as a sheep?

I can't believe this forced me to Google how tall are hobbits and pull my tape measure out of the junk drawer. Apparently, they are an average of three and a half feet high. That's still a lot taller than I thought I sheep was.
posted by Gator at 9:54 AM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I heard that the Hobbits were taken to Isengard.
posted by griphus at 9:56 AM on November 16, 2010 [10 favorites]

Just wait until archaeologists start digging around the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes in California (somewhere out here).
posted by filthy light thief at 9:58 AM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

How does this work? I would think that if you use land for a movie set, part of the deal would be restoring it when you were done. But things like this, and the various sets like Star Wars in Northern Africa just seem left when they are done.
posted by smackfu at 10:00 AM on November 16, 2010

It sounds like they offer tours of Hobbiton, so it's possible that the land owners preferred to not have the sets torn down.
posted by quin at 10:03 AM on November 16, 2010

They're tourist attractions, smackfu. Figure there's lots of rolling countryside and desert out there, but only one Hobbiton/Tattooine. The landowners are pretty much getting paid to have a way to get people to pay to see their property.
posted by griphus at 10:03 AM on November 16, 2010

Namlit: Now cute lil' hamsters in Mordor, please.

One does not simply Ewok into Mordor - not quite what you're looking for, but you'll have to make do (via Google image search, which found it on a random forum).
posted by filthy light thief at 10:04 AM on November 16, 2010 [4 favorites]

The Fleecing of the Shire.

I would think that if you use land for a movie set, part of the deal would be restoring it when you were done.

Sure, if you negotiate that. But not everyone does, some people even like it. It's a mystery to me that more of these aren't turned into tourist attractions, I'm sure there are plenty of LOTR that would like to soak up the atmosphere.
posted by anigbrowl at 10:04 AM on November 16, 2010

"It's time to put our big boys' pants on and get in the room and start talking."
posted by clavdivs at 10:04 AM on November 16, 2010

These are clearly out of date. Hobbiton was rebuilt starting over the summer to prepare for The Hobbit, which plans to start filming next Feb.

So you are saying that you have photos that prove these are out-of-date pictures of sheep in Hobbiton.

And with that sentence, I feel confident that I am making a statement that has never before been uttered in any language.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:05 AM on November 16, 2010 [5 favorites]

As the I would think that if you use land for a movie set, part of the deal would be restoring it when you were done.

According to the bonus features on the 4-disc set of The Two Towers, they did completely restore the Rohan location.
posted by Joe Beese at 10:08 AM on November 16, 2010

The Fleecing of the Shire.

No, no... The Grazing of the Shire.
posted by Joe Beese at 10:11 AM on November 16, 2010 [4 favorites]

Is this the Kiwi equivalent of "Reader's Wives"?
posted by ob at 10:12 AM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's my considered opinion that they're nestin'.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:22 AM on November 16, 2010 [7 favorites]

Either those are some big ol' sheep,

They've been taking Ent draughts and gotten a bit larger than the average sheep.
posted by Babblesort at 10:30 AM on November 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

What business do a sheep, a sheep, and a sheep have in the Riddermark?
posted by benzenedream at 10:33 AM on November 16, 2010 [10 favorites]

There are more sheep than people in New Zealand. So this is really just majority rules.
posted by Joe Beese at 10:33 AM on November 16, 2010

The Shearing of the Shire, surely?

Sssssshhhhhhhh.
posted by teraflop at 10:43 AM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Braathel?
posted by pracowity at 10:59 AM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

awwww ... i wanna live in a hobbiton!
posted by msconduct at 11:00 AM on November 16, 2010

Either those are some big ol' sheep, or hobbits were a lot smaller than I thought they were.

It's possible that particular hobbit-hole is scaled down a bit for forced perspective purposes.
posted by Fleebnork at 11:12 AM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Abandon Town of Specter from Big Fish taken over by Kudzu. (self-link)
posted by jefficator at 11:16 AM on November 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

Ah so that's why my SO occasionally hovers over her wool stash and hisses something like "my preciousssss...."

[and thanks about the cuddly Mordor update]
posted by Namlit at 11:26 AM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

You know, I must be the only one. I must be the only human being in existence who is rendered by these photos into a dewy-eyed mush of nostalgia for the great feeling I have when I watch these movies in the comfort of my own home in the special extended cuts.

I didn't particularly care for LOTR in the cinema at the time. The enjoyment came about 5 years later, as above. Go figure.
posted by paperpete at 11:40 AM on November 16, 2010

It looks like those pics were gleaned from Flickr user miss_rogue, without credit. They're from 2007.
posted by steef at 11:41 AM on November 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

smackfu: "How does this work? I would think that if you use land for a movie set, part of the deal would be restoring it when you were done"

I would not be at all surprised if the deal they signed with the landowners was a long-term one, with the understanding that there was a very good chance that the Lord of the Rings would be financially successful (even if it wasn't a critical success) and they'd come back to film The Hobbit. And that's even assuming the landowner wasn't so savvy that he realized the benefits of having Hobbiton stay abandoned on his land.
posted by Plutor at 11:50 AM on November 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

You can still visit Popeye's home, with no sheep or kudzu anywhere.
posted by AzraelBrown at 11:57 AM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

What business do a sheep, a sheep, and a sheep have in the Riddermark?

This made me laugh and I don't know why
posted by Sebmojo at 12:04 PM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

...the only human being in existence who is rendered by these photos into a dewy-eyed mush of nostalgia for the great feeling I have when I watch these movies in the comfort of my own home in the special extended cuts...

Oh no, Precious, not at all the only one. Wants me to stand right there, music playing for me and the sheep.
And that great feeling survives even in the face of some pretty uneven acting. Ah. That's where the term counter-acting comes from. Ian McKellen is counteracting.
posted by Namlit at 12:05 PM on November 16, 2010

A sheep, a sheep and a sheep enter the riddermark. Gandalf looks up and says what is this supposed to be, a triwooly?
posted by Namlit at 12:07 PM on November 16, 2010

A sheep, a sheep, and a sheep need to cross the Riddermark. How can you bring them across, one by one, without the sheep eating the sheep, nor the sheep eating the sheep?
posted by Gator at 12:08 PM on November 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

It's my considered opinion that they're nestin'.

Nesting? Wot, like birds?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:56 PM on November 16, 2010

I ain't been dropping no eaves, sir. Just something about a ring, and the end of the world, and... don't turn me into anything sheepish?
posted by cmyk at 1:18 PM on November 16, 2010

"One does not just wander aimlessly into Morder nibbling stuff and looking fluffy"

-The Fellow Sheep of the Ring, bk II
posted by Sparx at 2:52 PM on November 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

If I recall correctly, in Bored of the Rings, Dildo & Frito Bugger ride around on sheep, so this makes sense.
posted by sciurus at 2:53 PM on November 16, 2010

The building where I work was used to film the garage scene in The Final Destination, and the standard deal is that they will undo any modifications they make to your property, but you're also free to keep any of the modifications they make that you might like. At least a couple of local bars have gotten themselves completely redecorated for free in this manner. In our case there were a couple of shots from outside the building showing the inside, so they had to install full-spectrum lighting throughout the interior of the bay so the color temperature would match natural sunlight, and we were offered those light fixtures if we wanted to keep them. (We didn't mainly because we were already planning to upgrade to a different style for energy efficiency, but it would have been a sweet deal.)

During the week or so of the shoot we got no work whatsoever done; we basically hung around to the set, talked to the FX guys, techs, and actors, and ate their really wonderful food. They paid my company more for the use of the building than we usually make in a week anyway.
posted by localroger at 3:31 PM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

When I read taken over by sheep, it made me expect more sheep.

I counted seven. Some pictures don't even have sheep in them!
posted by CrazyLemonade at 4:51 PM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

One does not simply flock in Mordor.

Sorry.
posted by bwg at 5:01 PM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I counted seven. Some pictures don't even have sheep in them!

They probably figured you'd be asleep before you noticed.
posted by Gator at 5:02 PM on November 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

Somehow reminds me of The Prisoner...

If they do shoot The Hobbit there, they should find a way to work around the sheep.
posted by djrock3k at 6:00 PM on November 16, 2010

Aye, ye can be in a movie series knoon the world over, sellin' a' the DVDs and collectin' a' the gongs ye can muster, but ye let in one sheep ...
posted by dhartung at 7:43 PM on November 16, 2010

"How does this work? I would think that if you use land for a movie set, part of the deal would be restoring it when you were done"

On that note, the special features on the Extended Edition LOTR DVDs has a segment where they show how they had to do exactly that for Edoras, because the land is part of a nature preserve in New Zealand. All of the turf was carefully removed and placed in greenhouses, where it was cared for until they struck the set.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:29 AM on November 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

That's not a sheep, it's a baaalrog.
posted by w0mbat at 8:11 AM on November 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ewe ought to be ashamed of that.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:27 AM on November 17, 2010

> Just wait until archaeologists start digging around the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes in California

There's a very meh SyFy Original™ about this called 'The Sands of Oblivion' (2007). Like most of their wares, it's cheaply produced, poorly written and badly thought out.

Steven Sommers may be a bit of a hack, but he could have knocked that one out of the park, had they decided to make a theatrical release out of the thing.
posted by vhsiv at 10:01 AM on November 17, 2010