Latest / Mythmakers / The Magic of Middle Earth

Transcript

The Magic of Middle Earth · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and creatives
• 0:13
  brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and author and
• 0:19
  director of the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. And today I'm joined by Matt Fox, creator of
• 0:25
  Magic of Middle-earth Exhibition, currently showing at the Willis Museum Basing Stoke
• 0:30
  Campshire in the UK and this exhibition is open until the 16th of October. Hi Matt,
• 0:37
  so would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to get this dream job
• 0:42
  for any Tolkien fan? Hello Julia, thanks very much for having me on the MythMakers podcast.
• 0:50
  Yes, I've been a collector all my life and a recent study in the garden actually showed
• 0:55
  that one in three British people would have missed collecting something, however more just
• 1:00
  however humble. But I've really got that gene within me and I've done several big collectives
• 1:07
  in my life. I've collected vintage Star Wars toys and movie posters. I also collect 1980s memorabilia
• 1:13
  toys and games and BMX bikes and all those type of things and I'm a massive fan and collector
• 1:20
  of everything Middle-earth related, including Tolkien which would be the books and the first
• 1:26
  editions that everybody wants to try and get their hands on. But also what to come beyond that and
• 1:31
  the adaptations from the movies to video games and toys, music, artworks and of course to films
• 1:40
  as well. So they say that collecting is a sickness and sharing it is the only cure for that sickness.
• 1:46
  So this has been a fantastic exhibit. I chose to exhibit all my collection in one place which I've
• 1:52
  done within the Magic of Middle-earth and get it up there on the walls and get it in display cabinets
• 1:57
  and it's a free exhibition and people can come along and see it and I don't feel like such a
• 2:02
  loony anymore by having this big collection just sort of tucked away in my own house.
• 2:06
  Yeah, I really like that idea. I think one of the great developments of the whole kind of fan
• 2:10
  culture is that now we're all able to share it. We no longer feel quite so crazy on our own trying
• 2:16
  to explain why we really like Tolkien or 1980s so much. So you've got your own collection in the
• 2:25
  exhibition. So if someone was going to go along within the next month or so if they're lucky enough
• 2:29
  to be in the area of basing stoke, what kind of thing will they see when they walk in?
• 2:36
  We've got two or three favourite exhibits that you'd like to tempt us with.
• 2:43
  I have to say I love the artworks in particular and one of my favourite artists, well actually it's
• 2:50
  not one person, it's two people. It's the Brothers Hilderbrands and they painted a lot of
• 2:54
  middle-earth calendars and artwork and we've got a lovely big print of Smalg and it's this is
• 3:04
  if you have a chance to Google Smalg by the Brothers Hilderbrands, you won't have seen Smalg drawn
• 3:09
  quite like this before. He looks huge, he's a big sort of corporate or on a bed of golden treasures
• 3:14
  if he's just you know fat and lazy from eating all of the dwarves. It's a really beautiful
• 3:19
  rendition of Smalg and we've got that sort of paired up with an actual treasure hoard in the cabinet
• 3:24
  and the sculpture from a wetter workshop and that shows the the Smalg that was the adaptation
• 3:31
  from the movies and the movies did a sort of a different approach to the dragon they did the
• 3:35
  the sort of the wiven two-legged version of a dragon although as a small bit of trivia in the
• 3:41
  very first scene in the in the Hobbit you get the flashback of Smalg devouring Aireboard. Just very
• 3:46
  briefly you get a Catholic glimpse him with four legs so the dragon the dragon became two
• 3:52
  legged sort of part way through the the production but I think that's one of the great things you
• 3:57
  can see. Another thing that we created specifically for this exhibition was a Dairama and it's a
• 4:03
  Dairama of the Battle of Helm's Deep and to construct this I used they're called Toy Biz Action
• 4:09
  Figures there and there's sort of about eight inches tall and you know all the oracles wearing
• 4:14
  the arm and carrying the spears and what not and what we didn't really realize is because the
• 4:19
  you know because the figures are so big the actual Helm's Deep was going to have to be pretty huge
• 4:22
  as well but luckily I've got a very talented friend called Amina Kaufman who created the the
• 4:27
  Hornberg wall and the gate house and sort of siege ladders of weapons in the battering round
• 4:34
  so there's this big elaborate Dairama that I sort of spent a whole day putting figures into one
• 4:39
  by one by one and where you can see a great big display of the Battle of Helm's Deep and that's
• 4:44
  it's quite spectacular you can look at it for ages and there's lots of different details to see in
• 4:48
  there and I'd say another thing that I particularly like which is fun for families is we have a
• 4:55
  little kind of a big well I say a little but it's actually a very big bar store as if you can sort
• 5:02
  of sit there as if you're a hobbit sitting in the green dragon with a great big oversight tanker
• 5:06
  as well and it sort of miniaturises you so it's a great spot to have a selfie and make yourself look
• 5:12
  like a little hobbit sitting on the bar store oh that's brilliant I remember going to see at the
• 5:15
  science museum in London the exhibition that was accompanying the films way back in the beginning
• 5:22
  of the 2000s I took my kids and to this day I've got this picture of us sitting on the cart you
• 5:26
  know the Gandalf and Frodo cart from the beginning with the force perspective with me as tiny and
• 5:32
  them as huge and they were like little little creatures at the time they were hobbit sized children
• 5:37
  so that was huge fun so I'm looking forward to sitting on that bar store yes it's fun I mean I
• 5:43
  wanted to make sure that this is an exhibition that you know the die hard sort of people have had
• 5:48
  generation that you know could enjoy as well but you have to make it equally fun for for the kids as
• 5:54
  well absolutely and what's so interesting about having the Battle of Helm's Deep done as miniatures
• 6:00
  is of course the films back at the first set of films did much more miniature work than the later
• 6:06
  ones didn't it so you're going back to the you know the early wetter workshop approach as opposed
• 6:12
  to the all within a digital sort of environment one yes they were they were incredible and obviously
• 6:18
  they they weren't named miniatures they were they were called bigotures for the sake of their
• 6:22
  production weren't they I know yeah they lived up to their name so you've had your own bigoture
• 6:26
  yeah that's great yeah I can see there must be a problem about storing this but anyway we will
• 6:31
  worry about storage we will see it is beautifully on display at the moment so storage isn't an
• 6:35
  issue so what do you think it's taught you about Tolkien as you've assembled the collection
• 6:43
  oh well that's a good question um I would say that fancy and science fiction often sort of lump
• 6:51
  together in the in the bookshops you know in on that same sort of shelf but um the evocation of nature
• 6:58
  infancy has no parallel across the sci-fi and few writers really devote the natural world
• 7:03
  as well as Tolkien does oh so please do say that because that's completely my take as well
• 7:07
  brilliant carry on carry on yes well I I'd actually you know go so far some some critics use that as
• 7:13
  about to hit him and say um you know that he cares more about describing landscapes and about
• 7:17
  describing the characters and sublaces but he he was far-sighted in in terms of his environmentalism
• 7:22
  and um he was particularly passionate about trees and um you know from his imagination sprung
• 7:28
  tree-beard protector of the forest and I think slave people was fairly coming around to his
• 7:33
  way of thinking that actually trees may be a really decisive um element in averting an environmental
• 7:41
  catastrophe and and that's something that that I sort of wanted to bring across an exhibition and
• 7:46
  um and the exhibition supports the woodland trust as well I should say um that's something that I
• 7:53
  think I've kind of got from from Tolkien and perhaps I wouldn't care quite so much about that if
• 7:58
  I hadn't read Tolkien and I think that's something that a gift that he he he's giving us across the
• 8:04
  years from a time when it wasn't seen as particularly important perhaps um but now it's becoming
• 8:09
  very pressingly important so I'm really interested that you're also a collector of other
• 8:14
  memorabilia you mentioned 1980s stuff to start with that's what stranger things must be
• 8:21
  up your alley in that case so it's invocation of the 1980s what do you notice in the difference
• 8:26
  between the sort of quality of the things that were produced in the 80s and the the Tolkien
• 8:32
  artifacts that you can buy like the miniatures and other things do you feel there's a difference in
• 8:37
  approach? I love the 80s for it's kind of you know the colors and you know there was this big
• 8:44
  explosion or being electronics within toys and of course video games you know they kind of made
• 8:50
  sort of fledgling steps in the 60s and 70s but they really came into their their own in the 80s
• 8:55
  as a um as sort of a Tolkien collector or within the 80s there's not a huge amount actually it was
• 9:01
  a fairly quiet period at the tail end of the 70s we had the Ralph Bakshi movie and there was a small
• 9:09
  toy line that came out to accompany that they they were sort of scaled the same way Star Wars
• 9:15
  figures are scaled but they really didn't do very well they didn't have they didn't have great
• 9:20
  play value there weren't many accessories and it was a very small toy line so they didn't sell
• 9:24
  well and that conversely not not selling well means actually they're really quite valuable
• 9:28
  today and um you know they're they're not quite as high as Star Wars figures on the car
• 9:33
  prices but um those figures are still pretty desirable in particular there's a a ringwath
• 9:39
  on honesty and if you want to find one of those sort of mint then you're you're going to have to
• 9:44
  spend into the thousands to acquire that one yeah that's amazing I do remember this is showing
• 9:51
  my age now that in the very early day of home home computers there was a hobbit game that took
• 9:58
  absolutely forever to load and it was very much a very simple click to go left go right going through
• 10:05
  the you know the following billbo's footsteps but that was the very first computer game I ever
• 10:11
  played you know the adventure style computer game it's not it didn't put us all off because it
• 10:16
  really was a lesson in patience that game yes that the previously to that there had been a few sort
• 10:23
  generic role-playing games like um colossal cave and adventure that was sort of you know within
• 10:29
  the middle earth sphere but the hobbit by Melbourne House Zed Expectrum that was the first
• 10:34
  yeah middle earth themed game it was actually made by a couple of australians with the
• 10:39
  very kind of mech sorry Veronica Megler put the game together and it was the first game really to
• 10:46
  be a text adventure but also have graphical tabloes so you'd actually you'd have to you'd have
• 10:52
  the text at the bottom that you're in you're in the hobbit hobbit hobbit house but then above it
• 10:56
  you'd have this great picture and the picture would sort of draw before your eyes because the
• 11:00
  the spectrum wasn't powerful enough to render it in my image so you'd get the you know the little
• 11:03
  green door would be drawn in there and you'd see a bit of the landscape and as a child seeing this
• 11:08
  for the first time and actually seeing um you know my TV now is interactive I can actually do things
• 11:13
  on the TV you know rather than just passively watch BBC one and two um it was amazing so I have
• 11:18
  very fond memories of the hobbit yeah I'm sure there should be a secret club of all of us who
• 11:24
  spent that summer holiday in our in the eighties doing that game that I would certainly be a card
• 11:30
  carrying member of that club so do you have any plans to take your exhibition elsewhere as you've
• 11:36
  now got this collection if people are interested in seeing it yes indeed it is um it's say it's a
• 11:42
  touring exhibition and it's going to be um visiting museums all around the country so um I
• 11:49
  I can't really sort of make the announcements of where and when it's going to be at this time but
• 11:53
  um you know watch this base and it'll be um on our on our Facebook page the magic of middle
• 11:58
  earth um but it will indeed be hopefully coming to a part of the country near you um if if um
• 12:03
  basing stoke is it is just too far away for you and what about if we've got people over in
• 12:08
  America would you be temptable to because a lot of our listeners are over there would you be
• 12:11
  temptable to take it abroad well absolutely it's not uh you know middle earth isn't something that
• 12:17
  is specifically British and um middle earth collecting is it's got a fantastic global audience so
• 12:23
  it could indeed go uh go to America or or to um or to any other country across Europe so
• 12:28
  it would be fantastic to do so okay so we'll put a link in the the show notes so if anyone's
• 12:32
  listening who wants to tempt uh Matt to bring his exhibition their way uh you'll be able to contact
• 12:38
  them through their Facebook page so I have a few kind of um more general questions now for you
• 12:45
  and the first one I wanted to ask you is do you have any favorite talking trivia that you would
• 12:51
  like to share I mean you've actually already shared a few bits but perhaps from the filmmaking
• 12:56
  process for example I'm not sure I'm not sure you can beat the smug with four legs and two legs
• 13:00
  that's pretty you knocked it out apart with that one. I'll um I'll keep my trivia in the 80s
• 13:07
  um as you know that I particularly enjoyed that decade um and it's the rock group uh
• 13:12
  merillium they had hits in the aces with a couple of big hits called Kaylee and uh lavender and um
• 13:18
  that group they were named after Tolkien's book The Silmarillion in fact they originally began
• 13:22
  life as Silmarillion um but they decided shortening it to merillian to avoid legal issues so uh
• 13:28
  yes that's my um that's my nugget of trivia for you. Yeah that's right I'm sure there's actually
• 13:34
  quite a surprising number of firms named after Tolkien's um themed things like Palantir and others
• 13:41
  I wonder how they negotiated that anyway uh good luck to them if they are dealing with the Tolkien
• 13:46
  estate they're very fierce about guarding the you know the the copyright which is as it should be
• 13:53
  so I've also now got a quick fire round for you just to test out your instincts okay it's not
• 13:59
  just about Tolkien Matt hasn't been given this in advance so he's got the answer right
• 14:05
  sort of genuinely in a few seconds a couple of them about other Oxford fantasy writers which
• 14:11
  is also our remit so are you ready Matt? I'm ready the Hobbit or the Silmarillion
• 14:23
  the Hobbits? Lembass or farm and maggots mushrooms? Lembass yes
• 14:32
  elf or dwarf elf has to be want to live forever
• 14:38
  okay and now moving away from Tolkien down a rabbit hole or through a looking glass
• 14:47
  I think I'll go through the looking glass yes okay and now this is a choice Peter's sword or
• 14:54
  Lucy's cordial oh I think I'll go with Peter's sword I've always kind of like swords yes
• 15:01
  I'm wondering if you're going to answer that as a collector or as you know which does the most
• 15:05
  good because you know the the cordial that heals people is pretty pretty cool I think the
• 15:11
  the collector came out the hero's sword yeah the hero's sword that their prop's sword rather
• 15:16
  rather like to have that in one of their auction lots I'm sure actually that's one of my favorite
• 15:21
  moments is when that sword reappears later anyway so I also have a standard section in the podcast
• 15:30
  talk about where in the world is the best place for something so any fantasy world anywhere it
• 15:36
  can be sci-fi it can be you know epic fantasy anything and in your honour we're going to go for where
• 15:43
  in the world is the best collection so this could be something like the white witches spooky statue
• 15:52
  gallery in the line which in the wardrobe or indeed the Hogwarts pictures the interactive
• 16:00
  talking pictures in Harry Potter so do you have a favorite where in the world collection
• 16:09
  I think I'm going to have to go with a fear nor was workshop where he he crafted the very
• 16:16
  finest that the elves have ever seen so it's got to be really good and I created the the three
• 16:21
  similar hills because when they got stolen he went on a mad mission to get them back and I think
• 16:27
  any collector would tell you that having something stolen from your collection is is not nice
• 16:32
  and you'll be looking all over the place for them so I think I think fear nor was was quite right
• 16:37
  to do what he did it may be a bit of a murderous rampage too far but he he did want those silver
• 16:42
  rows back so I'm I'm going for fear nor's collection with his jewellery okay that's a very first
• 16:47
  age answer there that's absolutely fascinating that you really relate to fear nor as a collector
• 16:55
  I think that's the first time I've heard that it's going to make me think of because I've always
• 16:59
  thought it's wrongly placed greed but now I can see there was another side to this story but anyway
• 17:07
  oh maybe maybe it's a coded thing about copyright talking about copyright earlier because you know
• 17:12
  having your stuff stolen is pretty grim yes I think treasure within all of Tolkien's literature is
• 17:18
  usually seen as something fairly fairly evil something stuff usually a corrupting influence whether
• 17:23
  it's the arkenstone or the silver rules or the ring or the treasure hoarders. So there's
• 17:28
  those people mad yes you know the good things in life are simple and song and poetry and
• 17:37
  fear and good company and I think everybody relates to that really in Tolkien's writings it's
• 17:43
  the way to be yeah but we still also can root for you know the occasional artifacts
• 17:50
  just a little bit yes just just the chest of treasure as Bilbo you know comes away with it yeah
• 17:55
  that's that's fine yeah go with that. I was thinking about my favourite collection and so one has
• 18:02
  come out whilst I've been talking which is actually a C.S. Lewis one when they go back in Prince
• 18:08
  Caspian and they go into Care Paravelle which they don't recognize to start with and then they find
• 18:15
  the armory which has Peter's sword hence the the connection and all the other things except Susan's
• 18:22
  horn and the idea of going back to a place that you didn't that you know but you don't recognise
• 18:28
  to see your own stuff as a collection I think it's fascinating but the one I was also thinking of
• 18:34
  is from a different fantasy world series it's the Philip Reeves immortal engines if London has
• 18:40
  a version of the museum of London which has artifacts from ancient history including our history
• 18:48
  as part of what they're sort of scavenging so I like that idea of a scavenger's museum
• 18:53
  all very powerful stuff yes so Matt that's great thank you so much for talking to us and I hope
• 19:01
  that people listening to this who are within striking distance of basing stoke in Hampshire until
• 19:08
  the 16th of October will take time out to go and sit on the bar store and take their selfie
• 19:14
  and envy your collection and we look forward to hearing it traveling around the country
• 19:20
  in the months to come so thank you very much thank you Julie it was a real pleasure thank you
• 19:38
  you