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There And Back Again

New Pics From the Set of The Hobbit Include a Dwarf, a Skeleton, and a Lush Middle Earth

by Jamie Frevele | 3:30 pm, November 28th

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Ain’t It Cool News is sooooooo lucky! Quint got to visit the New Zealand set of Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit and he was kind enough to take some pictures. See more after the jump, including one of the dwarves, and find out who “Tall Paul” is. (Also, a spoiler warning if you click on the AICN link.)

First, seriously, let’s bask in the beauty of a set built by nature, and then we’ll get on to some characters.

Okay, first, we’ll introduce you to Tall Paul, full name Paul Randall. A former police officer, Randall — who stands at over 7 feet tall — is the stand-in for Sir Ian McKellen, who is reprising his role as Gandalf. He’s studied with the actor to perfect his every move, and was a convincing duplicate throughout the Lord of the Rings films. And his height helped provide a practical effect in illustrating the size differences between all of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s races.

Here is a first look at Bombur, the fattest and sleepiest dwarf, played by Stephen Hunter:

Quint also reports a ton of dwarf weaponry, plus he witnessed a scene featuring Richard Armitage. And this unfortunate fellow.

We’re not going to give you the whole scoop, because we don’t like to spoil things for our readers. But if you are interested in more inside information about what went on during Quint’s visit, check out AICN for his four-part story.

(via Geek Tyrant)

Previously in The Hobbit

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  • http://www.facebook.com/angelalynnfortin Angela Fortin

    There’s a pretty amazing extra in the LotR DVD set that features Paul Randall, along with one of the hobbit size doubles and a few other people. Aha, found it on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI4lu7c0zL0

    Apparently, Sean Astin thought that they had so many cameras they could record another movie while filming LotR and then proceeded to do so.

  • John Wao

    I don’t know which movie I’m more eager to see, Avengers or The Hobbit.

  • Frodo Baggins

    Bombur looks perfect! Is that forest gonna stand it for Mirkwood? ‘Cause it looks awfully… well, pretty.

  • Anonymous

    The trilogy did a lot of colour grading and filtering, no doubt the same will be done here.

  • Frodo Baggins

    To be sure, but all the gloomy shadows in the digital world can’t create the sense of tangled claustrophobia that seemed to typify Mirkwood in the book. I seem to recall Peter Jackson having sets built on a backlot to get the right look for Fangorn forest, I assumed he’d be taking the same approach this time around.

    Although come to think of it, the location in these photos may well be the forest where they encounter the trolls, in which case it looks perfect.