With this December's release of The Hobbit: The Battle Of the Five Armies, an epic age of storytelling will come to a close. With such a momentous occasion at hand, it's natural for those who've helped in telling the story of Middle Earth's most crucial epoch in history to come back and see the franchise off. We've confirmed that Billy Boyd will be doing his part by serenading the audience after the conclusion of this December's massive undertaking, and now we've seen The Hobbit series execute what's been dubbed as "the most epic safety video ever," starring – who else – Elijah Wood.
Variety ran with the video posted on the Air New Zealand YouTube page, which shows two rabid Hobbit fans rushing to make their Air New Zealand flight. Once aboard, they're thrilled to see Elijah Wood sitting in the section across from them, and this triggers a safety video that showcases the scope and scenery of The Hobbit trilogy, as well as a couple more of its stars. You can watch the video for yourself at the top, as it's a rather cute way of getting all of the usual flight safety instructions out of the way.
In addition to Elijah Wood's appearance, we see Sylvester McCoy (Radagast The Brown,) Dean O'Gorman (Fili,) Sir Richard Taylor (the head/founder of WETA Workshop,) and Sir Peter Jackson all on hand to help out with the normally dry task of telling everyone to brace for impact, turn off your devices, and not use the One Ring in the middle of any air traffic, as Ringwraiths are not cleared for any sort of air travel. According to Variety's story, the attention to detail in this video is staggering, as the following aspects that were used in The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings trilogies were also used for this safety video:
A number of New Zealand’s Middle-earth locations seen in the films, including Hobbiton and Central Otago, were used for the safety video. Weta Workshop supplied costumes and more than 150 make-up prosthetics, with Weta Digital creating the visual effects.
This isn't the first time Air New Zealand and The Hobbit have teamed to ensure scores of travellers (both fans and non-fans) have a safe and uneventful flight. As you'll see below, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Briefing helped commemorate the release of the first installment, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in 2012.
Considering Elijah Wood's Frodo was the narrative backbone in The Lord Of The Rings, it's only fitting that he come back to help see us off on either our adventure to New Zealand or our adventure to YouTube to watch the video we'd be watching on the way to New Zealand. The series has been good to Wood, and in turn he's always been nothing but good to the series, and this just proves it.
The Hobbit: The Battle Of Five Armies opens in any format you can think of on December 17.
