Why would people brave pouring rain to stand in line outside a museum at 9:30am on a Sunday? Why, the global phenomenon that is the Lord of the Rings, of course. The LOTR exhibition has been on for a few months, so foolishly I thought it would be quiet - but of course not, it was crowded. Being the canny sort, I went to the end of the exhibition first and managed to see most of it before the crowds caught up. It was good, too - which I'm glad it was for the $20 entrance fee. They had all the costumes, artwork, a 'life-size' cave troll model, weapons etc. I got to see in close-up the handiwork of my namesake and multiple-Oscar winner Richard Taylor. What that man can do with latex. Did you know that they made over 2000 pairs of feet for just the four main Hobbit characters? That a six-foot long model of a ruined mill that took three months to build was in the film for two seconds? No wonder films cost so much money. Of course they make a lot of that back through merchadising, and naturally there was a special LOTR giftshop you had to walk through to leave, which had everything from copies of the book to LOTR trivial pursuit (I admit to being tempted by the LOTR Top Trumps, but only out of nostalgia). George Lucas has a lot to answer for...
