Skip to footer

Check out 'the most epic flight safety video ever made'

Passengers on New Zealand Air are transported to Middle Earth in this new in-flight safety video that pulls out all the stops on Hobbit-isms.

One does not simply fly to Middle Earth. One pays heed as an elfin flight attendant guides one through Air New Zealand’s "Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made."

As “the official airline of Middle Earth,” Air New Zealand is celebrating the upcoming release of the third Hobbit movie with their own in-flight safety video featuring Lord of the Rings heavyweights Elijah Wood, Richard Taylor, Sylvester McCoy, and Peter Jackson.

“Cease your rabble rousing and listen very carefully and obey all crew member instructions and all illuminated signs,” the pointy-eared cabin crew member says with a smile at the beginning of the video. And passengers – like the LOTR fans in the video who can’t help themselves when they are seated by Frodo – probably can’t help but pay attention as an orc displays the proper oxygen-mask technique.

The video is four and a half minutes of Tolkeinesque fantasy covering all the essentials of routine airline safety. A wizard aboard a giant eagle demonstrates the crash position. While leading the charge in a battle scene, Jackson reminds passengers to stow all electronic devices. There are even tiny life jackets for Hobbits (or children). And of course Frodo is in the Shire to offer to passenger-fans: “May your path always be guided by the light of the stars and may the future bestow upon you all the happiness and adventure our Middle Earth has to offer.”

Air New Zealand, which has been taking the series’s fans to where the movies have been filmed for about a decade, previously pulled together a Middle Earth-themed safety video in 2012.

The final film of Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, titled, "The Battle of the Five Armies,” is set to be released in the US on December 17. New Zealanders will get to see it six days earlier, on December 11.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Check out 'the most epic flight safety video ever made'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2014/1023/Check-out-the-most-epic-flight-safety-video-ever-made
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe