Yep. This is another article on the post-Rings New Zealand film industry. But keep reading, because it’s not about how amazing King Kong or Narnia are. It’s not going to be an exercise in back-pattery.  Indeed both these films are amazing (especially Kong) and unless you are house-sitting for someone on the moon, you will doubtless find out for yourself in the coming weeks. This article is not about the massive spectacle of these recent New Zealand-made masterworks. This article is about their aftermath, their consequences.

Here are the obvious positive consequences: Firstly, money. At its peak, the production of the Lord of The Rings was the single largest employer in New Zealand with veritable armies of workers stretching across the entire country. Like any other studio picture, the majority of the profits ended up with New Line Cinema, but actually getting the pictures made led to the signing of a mountain of kiwi paycheques. And thanks to the big man himself investing much of his takings in the state-of-the-art Park Road Post facility in his home town of Wellington, the stage is set for any number of repeat performances. (Halo and The Lovely Bones. Christmas 2007.)

The flow-on effect from the trilogy is even more significant and perhaps, incalculable. As an example of the branding power and economic benefit these films brought, for each year one of them was released, the New Zealand pages of the Lonely Planet website received more visits than any of their others, a sure sign of the rabid global interest in and willingness to visit these funny shaped islands. A willingness that proved very lucrative.

And just as the amount of people landing at Auckland airport in costume was starting to die down it seems we are about to do it all over again with Narnia. I know what you’re thinking… This is a good thing, right? All those tourist dollars coming in… Unless you’re some kind of change-phobic racist or something? Yes, of course it is and no, of course I’m not. I have no beef with using largely kiwi crews to make films here in New Zealand. Far from it, I will crawl through the snow to support local cinema in any form, even pre Once Were Warriors ones, many of which are so bad they can possibly give you AIDS. No, my concern is what these films bring to New Zealand has the potential to take from New Zealand. Here’s a quote from Alan Lee, the Conceptual Artist on the Lord of The Rings trilogy:

“While (Tolkien’s) love of England may have been the foundation stone for Middle Earth, we didn’t believe we would find there, or anywhere else in Europe, a landscape that was not so steeped in its own history that it could serve as a backdrop for this epic. As a result I found the prospect of looking for Middle Earth in a country reminiscent of Europe but lacking the accumulated and overlaid evidence of thousands of years of habitation intriguing.”

Ummm… What? A land that wasn’t steeped in its own history? One that was not overlaid with thousands of years of habitation? Well shucks, Alan, here I was thinking that the colonisation of the Pacific, including New Zealand, by the Polynesian peoples ranked as the greatest feat of exploration in human history, topped only by the moon landing. I am pretty sure the Maori, the first human occupants of Aoetearoa me te Waipounamu may want to suggest that the landscape was in fact steeped in its own history. They even named the place after it. The Land of The Long White Cloud and The Place of The Greenstone.

Barry Osborne, producer on Lord of The Rings, famously described it as “the world’s biggest student film.” This is because so much of the shooting entailed dropping a camera somewhere in New Zealand and having the actors walk in front of it. They let the landscape speak for itself (in Elvish). Gosh, it must have been so beautiful for an audience unfamiliar with New Zealand. It must have looked exactly like the literary landscape they had in their heads all those years. For those of us that were familiar with New Zealand, however, much of it looked like a bunch of people taking the scenic route to a costume party.

So what, right? Heaps of tourist dollars in the kitty, heaps of people coming to see New Zealand? Maybe.

Here we get to the crux of what I am talking about. Untold thousands of tourists descend on the country, clutching their copies of the Lord of The Rings Location Guidebook. (I have two copies myself, and continue to give them as gifts in the vain hope more of my friends and family will visit me. So lonely.) They then spend several weeks travelling the country, taking in the most beautiful scenery on the planet. But they don’t actually see it, they don’t see New Zealand. The bus pulls up at Mt Potts Station in the foothills of the Southern Alps and the tour guide says “here we are at Edoras, realm of the Horse Lords.” Nothing is mentioned about the startling geology of the area, nothing is mentioned about the treacherous greenstone trails used by the Ngai Tahu.

With the recent release of Cameras in Narnia, the location guidebook for The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe I am willing to bet several cups of liquid Turkish delight that history will repeat itself. Perhaps they’ll build a giant wardrobe around the arrivals gate at Auckland airport. That wouldn’t be tasteless at all.

Tourism is an essential industry for a country such as New Zealand and I am over the moon that these incredible artistic achievements build our profile the world over. But New Zealand is also a real place. Come here to see the country that makes these fantasy artists, these Peter Jacksons and Andrew Adamsons. Go to the movies to see what fantasies these artists make.

Am I just whining because I had nothing else to write about this month? Partially. But ask a kiwi how often they get mistaken for Australians in the United States, how often it is assumed that New Zealand is part of Australia. How many Americans can find New Zealand on a map of the world? Compare that to how many of them can find New Zealand on a map of Middle Earth.