gizmodo.com: Amazon’s new hit show, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, brought viewers back to the gorgeous world Middle-earth, once again filmed in New Zealand. But the country’s pristine landscape may be suffering under this production and others, as workers speaking to The Guardian described vast waste and lack of care for the local environment.
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I think it’s really nice to film in exotic locations, but not at the expense of the environment itself. It’s really selfish to go into an area that you are not native to and ruin it for the purpose of creating a film that really doesn’t even highlight the meaning and history of the environment at all. Not to mention, even if that was the purpose of the film, it would still not be okay to ruin it for that purpose. I also think that Amazon came in, used New Zealand for its beauty, but didn’t give anything in return. Not to mention a lot of slander that New Zealand gets in particular from capitalists because of its socialist socioeconomics. Also, they used plastic to build large environments and just left them behind. They didn’t even fully use all of the beauty that they could. They quite literally came, used the land, left their trash, and left. That’s so disgusting.
I get that some productions probably have less production costs because they're not actually having to make anything like castles or magical forests. they're just filming in front of like a brick wall or something. But they're right think of how much of that set went into the dumpster and then polluted a country specifically known for its beauty. And if working on set is anything like working a concert or worse, the cleanup of the whole thing sounds absolutely terrible. Like large amounts of trash just hanging around a forest from an asshole stage hand who didn't want to throw away his chip bag. So the article is right, don't we have some responsibility to maintain a clean environment that we borrow for a short while. I wonder how long it takes until New Zealand's beautiful landscapes aren't as gorgeous or wonderful as we saw it in earlier films.
I don’t think destroying the environment for entertainment is “worth it” or necessary anymore and the fact that amazon dessmated everything in its tracks for a tv show destroying landscapes with little regard for consequences is horrible and should have consequences. With full on LED walls and high end VFX and green screen technology almost identical shats can be created in a studio rather than on remote mountain or in a coral reef. Star wars and disney learned to embrace that technology with shows like the mandalorian being shot almost exclusively with video walls as opposed to on a desert location like the original star wars used. The rule of leave no trace should not just apply to tourists and campgrounds but production companies as well. I think that amazon should face consequences for their disregard of New Zealand's environment and I am concerned for what they plan on doing to the United Kingdom next season.
Theo
Environmental problems in the entertainment industry, like the one described here, really need to be addressed urgently. Now more than ever, the environment is suffering and we need to work to become a more environmentally friendly field. It's heartbreaking to hear about the waste that The Rings of Power generated, and it really made me wonder why they even need to film in New Zealand at that point... instead of building giant sets and flying people in by helicopter, why wouldn't producers just opt for a set in a soundstage or something? I guess it's not something I entirely understand, and I'm sure there's more at play there. Then, the hypocrisy of Amazon, saying that the production met or exceeded industry standards. I don't know what industry standards are right now, but if this show met those standards they should be heightened. To think that all Amazon did was encourage crews to use reusable water bottles and eat vegan meals... it just makes me sick.
New Zealand is a beautiful country that is often used for television and films because of its interesting landscapes and wide open space free from obstacles. Just because productions film there often does not mean it is okay for a production to destroy the environment in which they are filming, especially when a company as big as Amazon is doing the destroying. Amazon has the time and money to clean up and could certainly avoid harming the environment. It is also offensive to New Zealand and the people who live there to say that the production and the people working on it met or exceeded the industry standards without specifying what said standards are. So much can be done these days with technology in a studio that would help prevent the destruction of an environment and maintain the beauty of the world around them so it will exist in its current state for many years to come.
This infuriates me to no end. Millionaire or billionaire producers not caring about the environment they are filming their projects. Listen, if it comes to the health of our planet versus a Rings of Power, we all know which is more important here. That does not discount the importance of art, in any form, at all. But my goodness please don’t keep destroying our only planet while making a TV show. Reusable water bottles and vegetarian meals once a week don’t offset the plastic and wood structures being thrown away once you’re done with them by any considerable amount. We need a huge overhaul of environmental practices in TV, film, theater, etc. We HAVE to start seriously caring about this stuff. Like, right now. I know this is a bit of a snarky comment, but I mean it - this article made me so annoyed with the apparent lack of care from the people making decisions for this show.
As I transition into the professional theatre world, sustainability and environmental consciousness is something I will really have to think about. I’ve never seen Lord of the rings or any of its spin-offs, but I know enough about it to know that it’s an insanely large-scale project. The larger the scale, the more mindful you have to be about sustainability and environmental consciousness. Amazon obviously did not follow that rule. The sheer volume of waste the production is creating is really insane. Four and a half olympic football fields of plastic just shoved into a hole in the ground is crazy. The fact that their initiative to reduce waste is to have crews use reusable water bottles and eat one vegetarian meal a week is truly laughable. In order to have any kind of positive impact, they need to look at the bigger picture, like new materials for set building. After all, they have all the budget they could ask for.
I love to see nature and people living in different places where I cannot go there myself, however, I know that it is often at an expense of destroying and impacting the local nature habitat and is also a topic that I care and wish to learn more about. The number in this article is astonishing as it reveal how big of an impact that tv show can have on the natural environment and the amount of damages that is not being mentioned within the show itself. While the article does mention things which people and the studio have tried to balance out the actions that they have done which had a huge environmental impact, it is harder to fulfil and “replace” what they have done as what we could do right now, while practice and valid, requires collaboration. It also made me think about the future of human life.
What Amazon creating waste, never. It’s unfortunate that the show would create that amount of waste, especially when it has a budget the size of what it does. It’s unfortunate that people had to anonymously report the amount of waste that was being produced by this production, instead of Amazon just coming out and saying it. And saying, hey we’re going to find a way to prevent this for the next season and all the other seasons that follow. It’s good to see that they had instituted ways to help lessen their carbon foot print, but as stated in the article, it probably wasn’t enough. I wonder if New Zealand has anything to say about the amount of waste produced by this production. I hope next time they add into their costs ways to make their production more sustainable, both in build sets that can be recycled properly or reused. Maybe we’ll hear more from the UK when the time comes.
This is upsetting to hear about. I care so much about harming the environment as little as possible – I think it is unrealistic to think that you will leave it completely unharmed, there will always be some type of damage (think footprints, touching nature and leaving oils, etc.). I feel like we have a duty to ensure that we aren’t leaving behind some type of environmental mess after we reap the benefits of filming or creating art there. However, hearing that there was enough waste to fill FOUR AND A HALF Olympic sized swimming pools is absurd. 390 tons of waste is unimaginable. I also could not believe one part, where it was mentioned that the environmental team tried to offset some of the waste by having charging stations, paper products, etc. I think that those are things that should be in place regardless of how much scenic/production waste is created…
This story is pretty rough and unfortunate to hear. Especially when the point was to be in nature but so much waste was created. I do think that this is probably not unique to many film sets. They are most likely just getting a lot of heat because it’s a big name production. I think there can and should be more policies and procedures put into place when it comes to demo as well as material selection. I can see how this situation can also spark feat into the people in England. They are already having housing shortages because of film employees moving in and now I’m sure they will be worrying about the environmental impact of welcoming in productions. As they should. It makes me wonder if any regulations are going to be added or if this will be swept under the door like many other issues in the entertainment industry.
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