I do some freelance writing for a company I love called Sideshow Collectibles.
The company evolved over the years, matured if you will, and I was asked to write something to help mark their first 10 years, perhaps for a catalog. My copy is on some computer somewhere and the only version found online has been edited to be more commercial, as is fitting, but some of the deeper impact of the words about life is watered down.
I originally wrote that 10 years is a long enough time for significant changes in life. Infants become young humans, pre-teens become adults. Couples marry, some split, people move, some die, businesses start and fail or flourish.
Our Arabic number system, makes any "ten" significant and ten years, or a decade, is quite a big deal. So, about ten years ago I discovered a Web site that I was immediately impressed with. I heard that J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" book (it isn't a trilogy, its one book in three volumes) was being made into a trilogy of films. It had long seemed amazing to me that somebody hadn't done this already and it was exciting to find that plans were made.
In an effort to scour the Internet for information, I found a place called www.TheOneRing.net which was a clearinghouse for information about the film from people who obviously knew the book. The tone was excited but not absurdly so, and the news and speculation was plentiful.
They had a month, maybe two, of archives and I devoured every single word, probably twice, and later enjoyed their more scholarly writings in "The Green Books." I was an immediate fan of the site and then my admiration grew as I read more over time. There was even a message board, where I would go and browse other fans' thoughts, not feeling a need to contribute, but I used them as a litmus test to gauge other opinions. I visited TORn daily, even though the content didn't yet demand daily visits.
In that same year, in December, I proposed to my friend Shannon that we get married and she agreed so in June of 2000 we tied our destinies together and became kid and wife. A year later we visited my first San Diego Comic-Con, which I still happen to think is one of the coolest events ever. It is a celebration of popular culture that everybody should attend at least once and many should and do attend annually. (Over 130,000 unique visitors in 2008!)
Shannon and I, by nature, aren't extremely outgoing with strangers but we somehow became friendly with a woman named Heather. We also gravitated to a modest booth put up by Sideshow-Weta (a joint venture of Sideshow Collectibles and Weta Workshop that has since split) featuring some design elements directly from the first of the Peter Jackson trilogy of LOTR movies, "The Fellowship Of The Ring". Keep in mind, those movies were still viewed as a gamble by many in the film industry (seemed an obvious "sure thing" to me) and they had not yet made much of an impact on culture and certainly beyond the core Tolkien fans that were significant but not yet a phenomenon. How under the radar was it? While at this booth, still a couple of years prior to it being made up of a giant cave troll, Elijah Wood wandered by to talk with the Weta and Sideshow folks on hand.
He wasn't at the Comic-Con promoting anything, he was wondering around the dealer's floor shooting the breeze and seeing the sights. Like me, he was mighty curious what Sideshow-Weta was up to. As press, I talked to Daniel Falconer who was on hand along with others including Wood. If the heartthrob showed up now he would be mobbed, to the point that there would be a security issue and he would perhaps be in danger along with those who would be trampled by the screaming hoards. Shannon barely knew or cared who he was but we walked up and said hello, talked for a minute or two and had him sign something. I don't recall any of the discussion but I recall with perfect clarity his shocked reaction when I suggested six months from then, after "Fellowship Of The Ring," hit theaters, that he would never be able to walk around the Con floor like he was then due to his forthcoming popularity.
His naive but seemingly genuine response was to look at me in shock, grab my arm and say, "Oh don't say that!" I knew better than he did that he was going to be, probably forever, instantly recognizable and known for playing Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings."
Also met were Cliff and Jon from TheOneRing.net! They were both polite and we either exchanged a greeting or a handshake, partly because Shannon and I were there and because I was "media." I think the Sideshow-Weta-OneRing-Wood contingent went off to dinner and Shannon and I went off to see what else there was to see. We had met Jon and Cliff from TORn, Elijah from the film, the graceful and now late Diane Kamahele from Sideshow, Daniel from Weta and Heather.
I had my first brush with the community around both Tolkien and the films. I didn't know it at the time, but it was to be life changing.
End of part 1
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