Shooting “Hobbit” in Alberta’s tar sands a hoax; Canada’s real “Mordor” no joke
1 June 2011 (Edmonton, AB) – A group of activists working with Yes Lab confirmed their role today in a series of media reports that director Peter Jackson is shooting scenes from “The Hobbit” films in Alberta’s real-life Mordor, the tar sands, as a cost-effective alternative to special effects.
The saga began with a number of Twitter sightings and cell phone videos of actor Elijah Wood in Fort McMurray. A fan video also speculated that the devastated landscape of the Alberta tar sands would offer an ideal location to shoot the hellish “Mordor” depicted in the film, and a fake Alberta Film website and video added to the illusion.
Confusion and condemnation followed as a Facebook page petitioned an end to the filming in the tar sands. The shock deepened after an Edmonton-based production company claimed to have “partnered” with Jackson and posted a video of the director discussing the filming of key scenes in Alberta.
Organizers reached out to several sympathetic writers and activists with large Twitter followings (Naomi Klein, Judy Rebick, Bill McKibben among them) who agreed to play along and help spread the rumour, though they were not involved in designing the hoax in any way.
By Sunday, traditional news media in Canada and the United Kingdom had begun picking up the story, offering contradicting reports to the rumours.
Finally, the activists appeared yesterday as characters from the “The Hobbit” at a Syncrude Canada Ltd. recruitment event at Toronto’s Pearson Airport. There, Gandalf and a team of hobbits promised to send Prime Minister Stephen Harper (costumed as Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor) back to the hell on earth he’d helped create.
“Exploiting the tar sands rips up the natural landscape, poisons the water, pollutes the air, accelerates climate change and impacts the health of local communities,” said an unnamed spokesperson from Black Flood. “To me, the tar sands are the epitome of the ‘land of shadow’ envisioned by author J.R.R. Tolkien, a veritable hell on earth. Canadians and the world need to wake up to the destruction sanctioned and promoted by its governments.”
The federal government recently acknowledged it had deliberately excluded data indicating a 20 per cent increase in annual greenhouse gas emissions from Canada’s oil sands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations.
- 30 -
Note to editors: Videos, photographs and documentation of the hoax are available online.
For more information, please contact: media@blackflood.ca