Crowd fund Minas Tirith!

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Some dreamers are hoping to build a full size Minas Tirith in England - and you could live there! Or at least take a holiday there. Or just visit. Or just fund it and get your name on a wall of fame.

Give 'em a few quid. It'd be tragic if this missed its massive target.

[Aotrs Commander]

Have you seen the target goal? 1.8 BILLION pounds!

I am PRETTY sure there is no way in hell this is going to get funded, it's literally thirty times the total amount of the most sucessful crowd-funding project ever (Starciizen's ASTONISHING 87 million DOLLARS). Hell, it's the same as the box office revenuve for the entire LotR trilogy WOLRDWIDE!

In fact, if it DID get funded, I'd be a little concerned about the project's viability, since I'm 95% certain it's them having a bit of a laugh. Either that or wishful thinking.

I mean credit for effort, but even as joke it's little too incredulous.

Except for apparently the people that have stumped up £10000 so far. (Not even 1%..)

The mind boggles.

[Prime32]

I'm 95% certain it's them having a bit of a laugh. Either that or wishful thinking.

Doesn't Indiegogo let you keep the money if the project fails?

[AMX]

Doesn't Indiegogo let you keep the money if the project fails?

Only on "flexible funding" projects.
This one appears to be fixed funding.

[Aotrs Commander]

Only on "flexible funding" projects.
This one appears to be fixed funding.

And the first thing it says in big bold letters is that if it doesn't fly, no money is taken out, to be fair.

Which says either "bit of a joke but they are perhaps prepard to take it seriously if they DO get the money" or "in deadly earnest, but a bit niave."

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I feel more like the massive price tag says that they know EXACTLY what their costs will be - which suggests they know what they're doing.
Me? I pledged my 50 quid. #FingersCrossed

[An Enemy Spy]

Only if I get to build a full sized Mordor.

[Broken Crown]

Is there even a mountain like Mount Mindolluin in England, or are they planning to build that, too?

[Traab]

I just cant believe there is actual space in england to build an entire mountain city. I mean, I only skimmed the info, but it looks like they intend this to be a fully functional city as well. With people living there and everything.

[Kitten Champion]

Why don't you spend money on, I don't know, charitable social welfare projects?

Actually, this reminds me of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One where uber-rich characters make Rivendell somewhere in Oregon.

[Legato Endless]

I can't help but think Whatever two locations they have supposedly picked out would be rather troubling to the Professor. Assuming they are selecting any landscape remotely similar to the films, it would mean the destruction of a vast part of the English countryside for a vanity project. The loss of which Tolkien was already mourning decades ago.

[Mrc.]

I wish they were more specific than "Southern England" because that's too vague to work out if I could commute from there or not

[Broken Crown]

I can't help but think Whatever two locations they have supposedly picked out would be rather troubling to the Professor. Assuming they are selecting any landscape remotely similar to the films, it would mean the destruction of a vast part of the English countryside for a vanity project. The loss of which Tolkien was already mourning decades ago.

Maybe, in deference to Prof. Tolkien's feelings, they should build Barad-Dûr instead.

[Dire Moose]

Why don't you spend money on, I don't know, charitable social welfare projects?

I can't help but think Whatever two locations they have supposedly picked out would be rather troubling to the Professor. Assuming they are selecting any landscape remotely similar to the films, it would mean the destruction of a vast part of the English countryside for a vanity project. The loss of which Tolkien was already mourning decades ago.

Agreed on both statements. I'd rather 1.8 million pounds be spent on something that actually contributes to society.

[Rockphed]

I feel more like the massive price tag says that they know EXACTLY what their costs will be - which suggests they know what they're doing.
Me? I pledged my 50 quid. #FingersCrossed

It is easy to come up with massive price tags for things without really putting thought into what they should cost. If I said that I needed to build 5000 buildings, and each needed to be 2000 square feet (40 x 50 ft) and 10 ft tall, I could quickly arrive at the number of bricks I would need to build Minas Tirith. I need 1800 * 5000 = 9000000 ft² of walls. Bricks are 2" by 5", so I need 129,600,000 bricks. Bricks cost about $1 each. A dollar is about a pound. Hmmm, Maybe I need more and bigger buildings (or I need more features than bricks to build a city).

As you can see, garbage in gives garbage out. It doesn't matter that I can come up with numbers, it matters that I can come up with the right numbers. I don't think this is going to be built short of some eccentric billionaire pledging most of the money.

[Giggling Ghast]

Agreed on both statements. I'd rather 1.8 million pounds be spent on something that actually contributes to society.

Billion. It's 1.8 billion pounds.

I could actually see myself contributing if it was $1.8 million pounds, and it was just, like, a really big slide that looked like Minas Tirith. Or even a Mines of Moria-themed haunted house. (Actually, that would probably be pretty cool.)

[Palanan]

What an utter waste of money, given everything else in this world that needs doing. The Professor would be appalled.

As much as I love Middle-Earth, I can't conceive contributing to a project like this. Minas Tirith lives in the imagination, where it was meant to be.

[warty goblin]

What an utter waste of money, given everything else in this world that needs doing. The Professor would be appalled.

Indeed. If you want to do something useful and true to Tolkien, get together, buy some land, and plant trees.

[Berserk Mecha]

Kind of surprised that someone wants to built this in England and not New Zealand.

[Mrc.]

Kind of surprised that someone wants to built this in England and not New Zealand.

I mean, England was Tolkien's home and he was a lecturer at Leeds university for a while. And you can definitely find parts of England that are like the Shire in pretty much every way.

[Legato Endless]

Kind of surprised that someone wants to built this in England and not New Zealand.

Saturation. New Zealand already has the Shire. Why should they get a monopoly simply because it filmed there?

[Aedilred]

I mean, England was Tolkien's home and he was a lecturer at Leeds university for a while. And you can definitely find parts of England that are like the Shire in pretty much every way.

Less so these days. The parts of England most like the Shire (i.e. the south-central and south-east) are also the most densely populated and thus the least available for rural idylls. Even in places like the Cotswolds it's hard to find spaces of more than a few fields where you can convince yourself you're not living in at the very least a mid-20th century post-industrial society. And that's if you can ignore the planes overhead. We've become very good as a country at ignoring the creep of urbanisation, but if you can turn off those blinders it really is amazing how "spoiled" England has become.

In the Midlands and the North and East Anglia it's easier to find places more removed and more rural, but the landscape is all wrong. Usually the weather too. Maybe the best bet is somewhere in the deep West Country.

It's one of the reasons that rural dramas set in historic England or faux-England are these days relatively rarely actually filmed in England: England just doesn't look like "England" any more. There are parts of Ireland that might pass; South Africa has been used; New Zealand is a reasonable substitute, if rather remote. But it's hard to find anywhere suitable in England and if you can, it's usually either chokka with film crews already or part of a national park, so not all that suitable for building a fantasy city.

I'm inclined to agree with the general tenor of this thread that this is a silly project. I will add the caveat though that England does desperately need more housing, with more new towns and cities planned, so if they are to be built (and short of major population curtailment they should be) I'd rather Minas Tirith than Milton Keynes. That still doesn't make this specific one worthwhile, of course.