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A Disturbing Change In Local Attitudes
Nov. 23rd, 2003 10:22 amRemember I said I'd do international trades for the upcoming issue of Pavement magazine, published here in the Land of the Great White Cloud?
Look how much Pavement is selling it for!
May I just say that the newsstand price of the magazine is about $7 NZ, and airmail shipping for it to the US was $10 Europe last year was $20 NZ. So they're bucking for a profit, obviously.
Sigh. It seems like Kiwi attitudes towards the LOTR film trilogy have gone like this:
FOTR = "I suppose this will all blow over like "Once were Warriors.""
TTT = "Hey, this is kind of cool."
ROTK = "Ka-ching!"
At the same time a good deal of this is in response to international pressure. Tourists WANT New Zealand to commercialize having been a Lord of the Rings set. An article in http://www.stuff.co.nz described how tourists were disappointed at the lack of, say, Rivendell location signs and T-shirts. There was a Boston Globe article last weekend about the commercialization of Tolkien via all the movie spin-offs.
-sigh- The thing is, it's not like New Zealand doesn't need the money. The government gave Weta a whacking great tax break hoping for just this sort of commercial spinoff and increase in tourism. And most of the time it's value for money. I guess I just don't like seeing folks ripped off - and myself, as a local, priced out of LOTR appreciation.
Look how much Pavement is selling it for!
May I just say that the newsstand price of the magazine is about $7 NZ, and airmail shipping for it to the US was $10 Europe last year was $20 NZ. So they're bucking for a profit, obviously.
Sigh. It seems like Kiwi attitudes towards the LOTR film trilogy have gone like this:
FOTR = "I suppose this will all blow over like "Once were Warriors.""
TTT = "Hey, this is kind of cool."
ROTK = "Ka-ching!"
At the same time a good deal of this is in response to international pressure. Tourists WANT New Zealand to commercialize having been a Lord of the Rings set. An article in http://www.stuff.co.nz described how tourists were disappointed at the lack of, say, Rivendell location signs and T-shirts. There was a Boston Globe article last weekend about the commercialization of Tolkien via all the movie spin-offs.
-sigh- The thing is, it's not like New Zealand doesn't need the money. The government gave Weta a whacking great tax break hoping for just this sort of commercial spinoff and increase in tourism. And most of the time it's value for money. I guess I just don't like seeing folks ripped off - and myself, as a local, priced out of LOTR appreciation.
