WETA

We finally made it to Weta Cave, a museum and store dedicated to the Weta Digital Company's triumphs.  The place is dripping with creatures at every turn.  It's located in the mostly residential Miramar neighborhood of Wellington.  This is a post for the people who hoped we would see lots of Lord of the Rings stuff while we were here.

Their symbolic creature and name refers to a New Zealand bug.  A creepy, scary, real insect that lives in back yards here.  Kind of like super-warrior grasshoppers?  Weta is the Maori name for them.  The full Maori name is "weta punga" which loosely translated means "god of ugly things."  You can learn more about these creepy crawlies here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weta

Lurtz from Lord of the Rings is waiting for you at the front door, along with some of the weapons forged for the same film.

Gollum is also there to greet you with a fishy offering.

The first part of the Cave is a museum of WETA's miniatures and other conceptual art that they used to prepare or make the movies they have been involved in.

This display case contains the chain mail and the chain mail making gun.  It describes the arduous process they went through to develop the varieties that have evolved over the years to build the most comfortable and realistic looking chain mail for film preferred by actors today.  This is plastic that is painted so well is looks real.  It is actually very light.

Here is more conceptual art, used in developing the character, Reepicheep, in the Narnia films.

This is material used in one of the earlier films they created called "The Feebles."

What I appreciated about their exhibit is you can really see how their abilities have grown, developed and changed over the years.

One of their recent projects is models of the Muppets.  They consider their models works of art because they are individually worked on in painstaking detail by sculptors.

The biggest feature at Weta Cave at the moment is TinTin.

But there are still some relics from other films.

There is a Children's Division of Weta,  called Pukeko Pictures.  They are currently working on a show called the WotWots which they initially lunched in 2009.  I haven't seen it, but it has won lots of parents awards for being so well done for the pre-school set.  They are also the creators of Jane and the Dragon series.

There was only one reference to Kong, but he definitely made his presence known in his corner.

I found the DO NOT TOUCH SIGNS amusing.  They all said, different things such as: "Do not touch or you will be decapitated." and things like that.

One of the most interesting parts of the trip was the film they showed to explain Weta Digital and what they do.  It is a very large and complex organization, requiring artistic specialists in many areas.  They have departments for sculpting, 3D modeling and printing, finishing and painting, moulding, miniature and model making. There is a foundry on site, and armor making specialists in addition to all of the computer art specialists that are part of the team.  Some are good with creatures, water and on and on.  There are several people in our ward that work for Weta and have loved it.


Julia thought it was pretty creepy.  Up until now she has been clamoring to see LOTR like some of her friends.  We have continued to ask her to wait.  When she is ready for the books and reads the books first, we think it will be a better time.  Her new opinion after visiting with Lurtz and Gollum? "I think I will wait!"