During a tour to the Alexander family farm in Matamata, New Zealand, a horseback rider dressed in an armor-like costume gallops toward the moving bus I sit in, brandishing his blade with theatrical fierceness—his intense actions contrasting the idyllic pastures behind filled with a flock of oblivious sheep and one seemingly curious woolly observer. (The Alexander family farm is home to the Hobbiton Movie Set, where certain scenes in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were filmed.)