Chapter 367: The Door That Wouldn't Break Open

The roars of the Uruk-hai echoed continuously. Standing atop the Hornburg, Duke looked down at the causeway leading to the gate to his front-left. A squad of burly men in Uruk-hai makeup broke from the ranks hoisting a battering ram. Braving the foam rocks raining down from above, they charged the gate.

While this battering ram couldn't compare to a real engine of war, it was still a heavy, genuine prop built by the crew, trucked to the location just the day before yesterday.

Nearly fifty strapping Uruk-hai hefted the ram and slammed it into the Hornburg's wooden gate with a dull thud. The gate seemed incredibly sturdy, taking no damage at all.

The Uruk-hai rammed it again. Once, twice, three times... The gate didn't budge.

After more than a dozen consecutive strikes, the Uruk-hai were clearly running out of steam. These stuntmen weren't Saruman's war machines, after all, so Duke called a timely halt for a break.

However, even after a half-hour rest, the Uruk-hai still couldn't breach the Hornburg gate when filming resumed. That thin wooden door seemed truly insurmountable.

"Cut!"

Calling another halt, Duke left the Hornburg wall and headed down the stairs to the gate. The doors were now open, and Bill from the props team hurried over to ask the stuntmen for their feedback.

"It's too solid!" the lead Uruk-hai actor said. "We can't even dent it."

Leaning on his large axe, Sean Davis, Gimli's stunt double, quipped from the sidelines, "Cohen, it's not that the gate is too solid. It's just that you guys are too unprofessional. You hit that thing with the strength of little elves."

"Sean!"

The stuntman was clearly very familiar with Sean Davis and immediately flipped him the bird. "You come over and try it, then."

Duke raised a hand, signaling for the guys to quiet down. He walked over and knocked on the door. It really wasn't that thick...

"Take a ten-minute break, then we'll try again," he said.

Ten minutes flew by. Duke didn't return to the top of the Hornburg. Instead, he stood beside the camera positioned behind the gate. The expensive camera was shielded by a dense metal cage to prevent it from being damaged by flying splinters when the gate finally burst open.

However, with the gate refusing to splinter, those protections weren't doing much of anything.

Filming resumed. Standing behind the gate, Duke could hear the thunderous crashes of the ram. The stuntmen clearly weren't slacking off, but the thin wooden doors remained completely immovable under the fierce assault.

"Stop!"

This wasn't working. Calling a halt yet again, Duke turned to the head of Weta Studio. "Richard, where did you order this gate from?"

Richard Taylor laughed awkwardly.

The atmosphere among the crew was a bit tense, so Duke casually cracked a dry joke. "I just want to hire these guys to make my doors. The doors they build could definitely hold off a mob of reporters and paparazzi."

Everyone around them chuckled.

Duke walked over and patted Richard Taylor on the shoulder. "Make a new gate. I don't want one with such high quality."

He turned his head and shouted to the crew, "Pause this scene! We're relocating to shoot the fight choreography up on the wall."

A large throng of Uruk-hai and Rohan soldiers relocated to the Hornburg wall for the shoot. The shots here were highly fragmented, mostly consisting of scenes where the Uruk-hai slaughtered the Rohan militia. At this stage of the battle, if it weren't for the reinforcements Gandalf brought, the human and elf forces would undoubtedly be defeated.

None of these scenes were particularly difficult. The actual filming took far less time than putting on makeup and doing touch-ups for the Uruk-hai, so the entire process proceeded in fits and starts.

Duke's director's camera was set up on the highest command platform, giving him a clear view of the entire set. Aside from Ivanka Trump, there was another crew assistant up there helping him.

Compared to that assistant, who was busy with all sorts of production-related tasks, Ivanka spent most of her time handling Duke's personal matters and had much more free time. She sat quietly in the corner, flipping through the crew's concept art and some storyboard sketches.

Although she worked as Duke's assistant, Ivanka was never a true movie buff. Take the current series they were shooting for example—she hadn't read the original novels, nor did she have any interest in doing so.

Still, after seeing so much concept art and live filming, there were some things she found hard to wrap her head around. Sometimes, she would take advantage of Duke's breaks to ask a few questions.

She had been staring at several concept sketches of the Rohan city of Edoras for quite a while. Seeing that Duke had paused his work, she couldn't help but bring a cup of coffee over to him.

"Thanks." Duke took the coffee and had a sip. Noticing that Ivanka was still standing behind him, he asked, "Something on your mind?"

"Yeah, there are a few things I don't quite understand." Ivanka placed the concept sketches in front of Duke. "Edoras is the seat of the Kingdom of Rohan's royal palace, so why is it designed to look so... dilapidated? It's just a simple wooden city."

Duke knew she hadn't read the books and had asked similar questions before, so he gave her a brief explanation. "The Kingdom of Rohan is primarily a nation of nomads. Their lifestyle is largely pastoral. Even though Edoras is where the royal palace is located, it's actually just a winter refuge for the people of Rohan."

In his past life, he had seen countless people ask the exact same thing on the internet. They obviously overlooked one crucial point: what use would a nomadic people have for a luxurious city?

Take the Hornburg, the most majestic structure in the entire Kingdom of Rohan. It wasn't even built by the people of Rohan, but was constructed by Gondor.

Ivanka nodded, but she didn't leave. Looking toward the Orcs and Rohan soldiers getting their makeup touched up, she asked another question. "Also, as the King of Rohan, doesn't Theoden have way too few soldiers? When they're attacked, he can only round up peasants..."

Hearing this, Duke set down his coffee cup and patiently explained it to Ivanka Trump.

This also tied into the fact that the people of Rohan were nomads. The vast majority of Rohan's army were herders in peacetime and were only conscripted when war broke out. Aside from the forces gathered for battle, the nation's military commanders usually only controlled a small squad of about one hundred and twenty men made up of their own household members. These men were drawn primarily from their own domains—fully armed knights who had undergone rigorous combat training.

For example, when Eomer was banished by Theoden, the cavalry unit he led—the one that massacred the Orcs—was his personal guard.

Then there was the Battle of Helm's Deep. The wars Tolkien described in the original books were almost entirely written using Spring and Autumn Annals brushwork. Prior to the Battle of Helm's Deep, Rohan had already fought two massive engagements against Saruman's forces. However, due to the limited runtime of a film, it was impossible to show everything. Thus, the Battle of Helm's Deep—which Tolkien had largely glossed over—became the focal point of The Two Towers.

A book could afford to gloss over a war, but a movie couldn't do the same. Every film had to end with a climactic sequence; otherwise, what would draw the audience in? A bland, slow-paced narrative?

Therefore, Duke intended to film the Battle of Helm's Deep on a far more epic scale.

After explaining all of this to Ivanka Trump, Duke finally said, "Evie, you just need to go read the books, and all your questions will disappear."

The film wouldn't follow the original text to the letter. In reality, Hollywood didn't have any movies that truly adhered perfectly to their source material, but Duke was still upholding the main plot and core themes of the novel.

When the afternoon rolled around, the crew relocated over to the Deeping Wall, and large throngs of elves began to take the stage.

Ever since the crew had set up camp here, the models playing the elves had been the center of attention. Much like the rest of Hollywood, Duke's crew had no shortage of gay and bisexual men, not to mention female executives like Hannah Serena who had a soft spot for strong, handsome guys. These fit, well-built men inevitably became the targets of advances.

However, these people knew exactly where Duke's bottom line lay. They wouldn't go too far or delay the production schedule with their antics.

Hollywood was just that kind of circle. Even if Bill Gates himself came along, he wouldn't be able to change the personal lifestyles within this industry. Duke had even less intention of trying to change it. For a single person to attempt to go up against a massive industry was no different from throwing an egg against a rock.

Most of the issues in this circle couldn't be solved simply by a director making good movies.

To put it realistically, movies were nothing more than a tool for a director to demonstrate their value. If one harbored delusions of changing Hollywood or even the whole world through film, what was that if not a pipe dream?

The dawn of the new millennium passed quietly, and the end of the world didn't happen. Aside from watching the first sunrise of the new millennium, Duke didn't feel anything particularly special. He kept ticking along like a fully wound clock, pushing forward with his filming work in a busy yet orderly manner. The year 2000 had arrived, and he didn't have much time to waste.

At the very least, until The Lord of the Rings trilogy was complete, he didn't have the luxury to waste any time.

After nearly half a month of grueling work, the scenes at Helm's Deep were gradually coming to a close. The new gate Weta Studio had built for the Hornburg finally arrived, allowing them to shoot the crucial scene where the Uruk-hai breach the fortress.

Compared to the previous gate that wouldn't break no matter how hard they rammed it, this new gate was as fragile as tofu. After Duke called for action, the stuntmen only hit it three times before a massive hole burst through the wood...

"Now this gate was made a bit too poorly."

Duke sighed after calling a halt. But it didn't really matter. The old and new gates looked identical on the outside, so he could easily splice the footage from the previous shoot into this take. That was child's play in post-production.

The Uruk-hai breaking through the gate and Aragorn leading the desperate counterattack would undoubtedly be incredibly inspiring on the big screen.

This was also the crew's final scene at Helm's Deep, but Duke had made quite a few changes. First, he established that the horses had been hidden inside the Hornburg beforehand, and second, he increased the number of cavalry.

It was true that this was a fantasy film, but having just over a dozen riders charge out of the Hornburg and mow down countless Uruk-hai easier than harvesting wheat was simply too unbelievable.

Duke expanded the interior dimensions of the Hornburg, added a contingent of elves among the survivors, and increased the number of cavalrymen to several dozen. Furthermore, most of them would be killed in action after charging out. The fact that the main characters survived would partly be due to these men fighting to the death to protect them.

Shooting a cavalry charge was relatively complicated, but fortunately, they could rely on CGI to bulk out the numbers in post-production. Having around twenty riders on set was plenty. By mid-January, the crew finally wrapped up the battle at Helm's Deep and returned to Wellington.

Duke also had to leave New Zealand temporarily. He was still the executive producer for the latter two installments of The Matrix, and he needed to make a trip to Sydney.