Bit of Ivory

Well, when I got up this morning I saw that they had put Andy’s appearance on the front page of the paper. I decided that I’d better go earlier than I’d planned– and it’s a good thing I did, because there was already quite a line when I got there at 4, and it only got longer as time went on. Jen arrived at about 4:45, and we passed the time reading and chatting about fic. My sisters arrived next, then Lilac, then Fellytone (who finally got an LJ! Whoot!). Borders ran out of BOOX, which I think was very stupid of them. They should have known it would be packed. Originally they said that Andy would sign another piece of merchandise if someone had the book as well, but they changed it to only one thing per person when they realized how gigantic it was going to be, so it was lucky that Jen didn’t have anything for him to sign or else Sweeney would have been out of luck. Although I’d probably end up getting one copy signed and letting her have the signed one. She cares more about it than me, I’m sure.

It was weird. I wasn’t excited at all while I was waiting. It was only after I heard his voice over the PA that I realized how incredibly cool this was. Like I said in my phone post (does anyone want to transcribe that? I don’t feel like it right now, particularly), they didn’t have it set up very well at all for the presentation part of it. He spoke from the cafe, and all of us who had stood in line for hours couldn’t see him at all. It was still really cool to hear his voice live while doing the schizophrenic scene from TTT, but I wish I could have seen his expressions change. However, there were compensations for this. Everyone who had stood OUT of line and therefore got to SEE him doing the presentation had to go to the BAX of the line when it was over, and it was the longest line I’ve ever seen. Even two hours after the event started it was still all the way to the other end of the mall– almost an entire city block.

The Q&A session didn’t really yield much new information. It was interesting to hear that he felt that the scene where Gollum dies at the end of RotK was the hardest scene to film, simply because they had to decide which emotion was going to be foremost in Gollum’s psyche as he was dying. Was the pain of sinking into hot lava bad enough to make his possession of the Ring fade? I’m glad they made the decision that the Ring was what was uppermost. I loved that scene.

So while the people who had seen him got the better end of the deal there, we only had to wait about 15 minutes to actually get his autograph. He was a very, very nice guy– he paid special attention to the kids, and was very gracious to all of us GEEX. He said at the beginning of the presentation that he was absolutely overwhelmed– I think it was a bigger crowd than in New York, even, because they stopped letting people in in NY. See, they weren’t so stupid when they decided to have one of Serkis’ five cities be SLC. Maybe it shows that they actually did their homework. We Utahns love our Rings. Although my dad did suggest that Sundance taking place at the same time might have something to do with it. Maybe. I don’t really care why he came, though. He came!

They really rushed us through, so of course I didn’t get to say much, but I appreciate the opportunity to tell him that he did a really awesome job. I told him that I felt decidedly ambivalent about Gollum’s fate in the movies, which is quite an accomplishment since I was only too pleased that he died when I read the book. He smiled and said “Well, that’s a job well done, then!” I said “thank you” one last time and that was it.

Let’s see, what else? He had really big hair, and a great accent (of course). I forgot to bring my camera, but Fellytone got one with her camera-phone, and Lilac got one, I think, and my sisters bought a disposable camera at Suncoast and took a few more pics, so once we get those developed I’ll post them.

The book is AWESOME, too. Well worth the $10. Everyone should buy it.