I was a huge Peter Jackson fan prior, due primarily to Meet the Feebles (still my secret guilty pleasure), and it was just so bizarre to see him move from low budget camp like MTF and Dead Alive, to a $300million dollar massive endeavor.
From my very limited experience as a DP on several friends low budget films, the organizational efforts to produce a film the size of LOTR is lightyears beyond films like MTF. Of course later films like The Frighteners or Heavenly Creatures probably helped him build up to being able to manage that.
Agreed, but in some ways it made sense. I remember watching the "making of" special feature on his first film (Bad Taste), which talks about his $20 homemade Steadicam, among other really creative approaches. With a director like that, you have to figure he'll actually use the massive budget in interesting ways, instead of squandering it!
I just finished watching these movies for the first time literally hours ago.
They are beautiful visually but fail on every level of storytelling.
The whole movie was long flowing landscape shots with music swells and battles that were boring.
There was no discernible plot, just elves walking and occasionally running or flying in the forest, or a field sometimes. The world failed to establish any rules or explain itself adequately.
The movie lurched from set piece to set piece and lacked the connective tissue of storytelling.
In the modern vernacular, the whole movie is payoffs with no setups.
Yeah, imma go ahead and pour some gas and light the torch. Those movies are amazing. And flaws aside, great cinematic storytelling. Seeing them in the theaters as a teen is a memory I’ll hold forever, and watching them every year or two on my tv is always enjoyable. To each their own but man, I love those movies!
I agree with you. I think Peter Jackson is a poor director, and that those movies start mediocre and get markedly worse as they go. Jackson never passes up an opportunity to streeeetch a scene out with fake tension, or to mock one of his characters, or to bolt on some flashy but empty set piece.
Example: the fellowship is fleeing the Balrog in the Mines of Moria. Gandalf makes his stand and is whipped by the Balrog, and falls to the edge of the precipice. The Balrog’s whip coils up from below, wraps his ankle, and drags him down to the depths as he cries, “Fly, you fools!”
Unless you’re Peter Jackson, in which case Gandalf (a) falls on his own accord, with no whip around his ankle, and (b) whispers, which sounds nice on camera, but wouldn’t be heard by his fellowship.
The movie is chock-full of this bullshit. Now, I’m not upset that Jackson deviated from the book, although I do notice — I’ve been reading LOTR since I was 9, and did research on Tolkien in graduate school. My problem is that many of his changes make things worse.
Yes, he got some things right, but the consistency of his flaws just grates on me. Faramir, for instance: in the book he does the right thing, and lets Frodo and Sam leave unhindered. This is in clear contrast to his brother, and an important illustration of one of Tolkien’s core beliefs: the evil is a choice, not determined fate or destiny.
In the movie, though, Faramir succumbs to the ring initially and leads the hobbits around for 15 minutes. I’m convinced that Jackson made this choice, and many others, only to pad runtime. He did the same thing to even worse effect in The Hobbit.
And yet with all that padding, he left out The Scouring of the Shire, one of the most important parts of the book. Screw Tom Bombadil: he was fun, and his immunity to the ring is a great moment, but the story can live without him. Leaving out the Scouring though is an awful choice; it’s a lovely and concise illustration and recap of most of the books themes, and shows the character’s growth in a clear light.
Yes. I agree. The movies don't show Gandalf casting a spell on the door in Moria and the counter spell being cast by Durin's Bane. Nor Glorfindel helping Frodo escape the Ringwraiths or Gandalf repelling the wraiths alone on Weathertop. Those would have been cool to include.
As sacrilegious as this sounds to the majority of the fanbase, I hold hope that the trilogy will be rebooted by another director. Not necessarily as a way to create a superior product, but to compare how two studios have approached the story.
I've read the hobbit but never the LOTR, but in the making of LOTR videos they point out (a few times I think) that Tolkein's writing style was highly unusual and extremely difficult to adapt to a screenplay. It's been awhile since I saw them but one comment they made was that Tolkein seemed to just keep the story elements flowing on and on almost like he was writing more of a historical account rather than a novel with a classic arc. What we got on film was the classic arc more or less, meaning they had to twist and bend the source material somehow. They basically thought that a faithful adaption would not have found wide audience appeal because Tolkien broke too many rules of writing novels.
I had read the LOTR several times, but it wasn't until I listened to it as an audiobook did it click for me just how much of the spoken dialog in the movies is pretty much word-for-word from the books. I get what you and others are saying about Tolkiens narrative style, but a lot of the dialog transitioned well to the big screen.
And it's mixed up with awfully bad Hollywood lines such as "Because I believe there is still Good in this world". Such a poor written next to Tolkien's.
> Nor Glorfindel helping Frodo escape the Ringwraiths
They replaced Glorfindel with another character that makes just as much sense and made it so the movie was not even more male dominate then it already was. It also improved the romantic relationship considerably. In some ways its actually an improvement from the books.
Overall I think that is just complaining on an incredibly high level. Sure, lets make a new set of Lord of the Rings movies every 5 years, I'm in. But given the history of Fantasy in Movies, LotR pulls of the nearly impossible.
Almost all the comments that are unhappy with the LoTR trilogy are upset that they didn't add every single thing from the book. Tom Bombadil adds nothing to the story. Glorfindel can and was easily swapped. I believe the books have ~160 different characters with speaking roles. If they were accurate with the books it would cost way too much and they would need 30 hrs of runtime.
He does. He's the only character on which the Ring has no effect.
> If they were accurate with the books it would cost way too much and they would need 30 hrs of runtime
Even by keeping it at the same length, it could have been way more faithful. Faramir is portrayed as an asshole in the movie while in the books he understands that his brother was mistaken and does not make the same decision with the hobbits. Going to Osgiliath made absolutely no sense at all.
Faramir is not just an asshole, they show him as conflicted. They show how his father is talking down to him and you can understand his motivation. And in the end he makes the same choice. And that makes it more impactful when his father gets angry and sends him back to Osgiliath.
At also made showing the taking of Osgiliath more natural in the movie.
It's really weird however that in some parts, Jackson goes at length to be very faithful to the book, almost in an unnecessary way. Yet in most places he decides to venture far away from what Tolkien wrote or suggested, making it into a pretty mixed bag.
Not only missing the Scouring of the Shire was bad, it was essential in Tolkien's philosophy of life (which is essential Christian at core). You can do good, but nothing guarantees that you will be rewarded for it, and the Scouring of the Shire is a stark reminder of that.
Instead, Jackson went for a Disney(TM) Happy End. Seriously?
Let's not forget Jackson is also to thank for Gandalf tackling Pippin with his staff when he finally grows up and tries to act like a responsible adult in front of Denethor as he tells about Boromir's death. That must have been the worst thing in the whole trilogy. This is exactly the opposite of how Gandalf reacts in the book.
Aside from that, Jackson has a weird tendency to make everything look overtly visual instead of suggesting things. Theoden is "possessed" by Sauron, not by some kind of magical spell (that makes his beard change size!), but because of Wormtongue's ill influence over him. That's it!
In the same line, The Mouth of Sauron is represented by a character whose Mouth is the only thing visible from his face, and overtly large and dirty. This does not make sense. The Mouth of Sauron is not litterally the ugly mouth of some kind of demon, it is simply... a spokesperson. It's really tiring as he does this over, and over again.
> With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled about the wizard's knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. "Fly, you fools!" he cried, and was gone.
I mean I am a hardcore fan of the books for my whole live, and I certainty have some small issues with the movies, but damn. Saying that Peter Jackson is not a good director is quite the statement.
It seems to me that because you love the books so much you are applying and insanely high standard. Given where Fantasy has been before and since in movies what was achieved was almost unbelievable how amazing it is.
> In the movie, though, Faramir succumbs to the ring initially and leads the hobbits around for 15 minutes.
I think this is not even a bad change. It made Faramir and thus Boromir and the family dynamic a bigger part of the story. It gives it way more impact later when Faramir rides out.
> He did the same thing to even worse effect in The Hobbit.
In the Hobbit he had to jump in last minute and the studio forced it to 3 movies. There was no saving that thing. The only reason he directed it at all is because they might have pulled the movie from New Zealand.
> And yet with all that padding, he left out The Scouring of the Shire, one of the most important parts of the book.
There is just no practical way to include this even in the extended editions. The movie gets made endless jokes about how it has like 7 endings. It just not how movies work.
Remember even the cinematic editions had to cut so many things, it totally insane to think they could have added what amount to a whole other part at the end that can arguably be its own movie.
> There is just no practical way to include this even in the extended editions
They have could have removed the 7 endings and just included that one instead. The other endings felt completely out of place anyway. That's typically the sign of a director that does not know what to include and to cut out.
So you cut out the Fellowship meeting? You cut the crowning or Aaragon where everybody kneel and was on of the best moments? Do you now show them leaving?
Do you seriously want to stretch the hobbies in bar scene at the end into a what could be its own movie. It simply doesn't practically fit.
> The world failed to establish any rules or explain itself adequately.
Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy is a masterwork on all counts. Its lore, world building, character development, thematic juxtapositions, and pacing are all incredible. If it has one pronounced flaw, it's that the denouement could stand as a film on its own, but taking it away would be an injustice.
A film that failed to explain itself or the rules of its universe is Denis Villeneuve's Dune. That's the film to watch if you want a visual aid to the novels that has zero character development and is wholly a visual spectacle.
Truth be told, I'm not a fan of how Ridley Scott took a scalpel to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Getting rid of Mercerism and empathy boxes, Deckard's wife, the fallout, the android-run duplicate police station, the goat, and setting it in L.A. rather than the novella's native San Francisco...
still, the new Dune explains itself better than the old Dune. Meaning the old Dune was even more whack (in every possible way) than the new one. Still, all these movies (Dune A and B and also LOTR) have one thing that makes them worthwhile: gorgeous visual world building.
I feel that way about the Hobbit trilogy which should have been at most 1 long movie.
But LOTR was ground breaking on many levels and will probably never be surpassed in my lifetime. Amazon is making a LOTR TV series that I thoroughly expect I'll hate every second of but I'd love to be wrong, though my faith in the film industry is exceedingly low.
My personal reduction of Jackson's realization of the novels is a group of hobbits looking at each other with an over-abundance of weariness. I sort of took it as the editor's sympathy with the audience.
> They are beautiful visually but fail on every level of storytelling.
Sure the movie that is closely based on one the most critically acclaimed and most sold stories in the world totally fails as story telling
> The movie lurched from set piece to set piece and lacked the connective tissue of storytelling.
Clearly you weren't paying attention.
> just elves walking
I really seems you were not paying attention.
> The world failed to establish any rules or explain itself adequately.
Its Epic Fantasy. Not like some modern fantasy where everything has to be based on quasi scientific rules. Not getting all the rules explained and discovering the world is part of the point.
> In the modern vernacular, the whole movie is payoffs with no setups.
I assume you were not watching the Extended Editions. There is plenty of setup there, but there is enough even in the cinematic edition (even when I haven't seen them in a decade).
When I watch movies like this I absolutely dig the scenery ang general graphical quality. As for the rest, I just do not pay attention. Same as for many songs. I like the melody, voices, arrangement but I do not really listen to words. The minute I do it'll ruin the piece.
Part of me dies whenever someone implies all music has lyrics or music == song. That you care more for the music than the lyrics melts, imperceptibly, my iceberg heart.
The Enya-esque vocal texture, probably meant as a "this is ancient" short-hand, no longer tries my optic nerves, but I am comforted by anyone who responds more to pitch, timbre, and rhythm than the inanity of lyrics.
Goethe hated people setting his poetry to music, but endorsed the settings made by an obscure composer named Zelter. Musically, these settings aren't considered very interesting, but that's what Goethe preferred: the music shouldn't distract from the poetry.
On the other hand, consider the famous Lieder (or most librettos) -- the music is interesting and the text, less so (on its own). Exceptions abound, of course, but I've come to expect an inverse relationship between music and text in this way.
I’m exactly like this too. Can’t pay attention to more than one thing. Most music to me is about melody, sad that I can’t pay attention to lyrics. I don’t follow most movies because of this myopic attention span.
For me the most memorable parts of these films are the amazing prosthetics and makeup that Weta Workshop created, especially the orcs. They are so well done and give the films such a realistic quality.
When I first saw these films in theatre as a teenager I remember being blown away by all of the CGI which was obviously great for its time, but nowadays I appreciate these and the other practical effects so much more. The various videos Adam Savage has made on his Tested channel with Weta Workshop are great as well, I can't recommend them enough to anyone interested in this type of thing.
The CGI in some places is really not very good at all, in other places its pretty good. The practical effects hold up amazingly well. All the parts of the movie that are non CGI just look amazing, and in some places the used CGI in a small way and that stuffs looks good as well.
The difference between LotR and the Hobbit couldn't be bigger. Hobbit is a gigantic trashy CGI shitfest. But what can be said is that the Hobbit was so terrible for so many other reasons that the CGI part didn't really matter.
It is longer in the movies but there are also lots of things in the books that are not in the movie. It makes sense to increase the battle scenes for a movie.
And the romantic plots were in the book as well.
Are you sure you are not mixing up Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit?
The article glaringly omits the fact that Peter Jackson had to sue New Line to get the proceeds from the film as he was grossy underpaid due to hollywood accounting tricks/fraud that claimed there wasn't that much profit. [1]
No doubt variety.com don't want to remind us that their content sources (the studios) can be dodgy as whenever they can get away with it.
Is there a word for the phenomenon "company does something morally questionable to increase (short-term) profits"? I feel like it happens all the time but society just kind of complains and then forgets about it. If we have a word for it we can call it out and keep track of it better.
> The article glaringly omits the fact that Peter Jackson had to sue New Line to get the proceeds from the film [...] No doubt variety.com don't want to remind us that their content sources (the studios) can be dodgy as whenever they can get away with it
The article is "‘Lord of the Rings’ at 20: Why Peter Jackson’s Trilogy Was One of Hollywood’s Riskiest Projects Ever", not "Lord of the Rings: The Complete History of The Movie". How the money was distributed afterwards would be out of place.
The Jackson lawsuit was mentioned in this Variety article [1] on another legal case involving LotR. There the Jackson suit against New Line was on topic, and so it gets mentioned.
I read the article and still don't know the answer to the titular question. Why exactly was LOTR risky? Just because it was high budget and Jackson wasn't proven yet?
57 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 110 ms ] threadFrom my very limited experience as a DP on several friends low budget films, the organizational efforts to produce a film the size of LOTR is lightyears beyond films like MTF. Of course later films like The Frighteners or Heavenly Creatures probably helped him build up to being able to manage that.
"Peter Jackson’s LOTR Was an Improbable Miracle, and We’re Lucky to Have It"
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2020/03/peter-jackson...
They are beautiful visually but fail on every level of storytelling.
The whole movie was long flowing landscape shots with music swells and battles that were boring.
There was no discernible plot, just elves walking and occasionally running or flying in the forest, or a field sometimes. The world failed to establish any rules or explain itself adequately.
The movie lurched from set piece to set piece and lacked the connective tissue of storytelling.
In the modern vernacular, the whole movie is payoffs with no setups.
Go ahead, burn my account down :-)
It's a novel perspective...
Unless you’re Peter Jackson, in which case Gandalf (a) falls on his own accord, with no whip around his ankle, and (b) whispers, which sounds nice on camera, but wouldn’t be heard by his fellowship.
The movie is chock-full of this bullshit. Now, I’m not upset that Jackson deviated from the book, although I do notice — I’ve been reading LOTR since I was 9, and did research on Tolkien in graduate school. My problem is that many of his changes make things worse.
Yes, he got some things right, but the consistency of his flaws just grates on me. Faramir, for instance: in the book he does the right thing, and lets Frodo and Sam leave unhindered. This is in clear contrast to his brother, and an important illustration of one of Tolkien’s core beliefs: the evil is a choice, not determined fate or destiny.
In the movie, though, Faramir succumbs to the ring initially and leads the hobbits around for 15 minutes. I’m convinced that Jackson made this choice, and many others, only to pad runtime. He did the same thing to even worse effect in The Hobbit.
And yet with all that padding, he left out The Scouring of the Shire, one of the most important parts of the book. Screw Tom Bombadil: he was fun, and his immunity to the ring is a great moment, but the story can live without him. Leaving out the Scouring though is an awful choice; it’s a lovely and concise illustration and recap of most of the books themes, and shows the character’s growth in a clear light.
As sacrilegious as this sounds to the majority of the fanbase, I hold hope that the trilogy will be rebooted by another director. Not necessarily as a way to create a superior product, but to compare how two studios have approached the story.
I wonder though..
They replaced Glorfindel with another character that makes just as much sense and made it so the movie was not even more male dominate then it already was. It also improved the romantic relationship considerably. In some ways its actually an improvement from the books.
Overall I think that is just complaining on an incredibly high level. Sure, lets make a new set of Lord of the Rings movies every 5 years, I'm in. But given the history of Fantasy in Movies, LotR pulls of the nearly impossible.
He does. He's the only character on which the Ring has no effect.
> If they were accurate with the books it would cost way too much and they would need 30 hrs of runtime
Even by keeping it at the same length, it could have been way more faithful. Faramir is portrayed as an asshole in the movie while in the books he understands that his brother was mistaken and does not make the same decision with the hobbits. Going to Osgiliath made absolutely no sense at all.
Such changes were NOT needed.
At also made showing the taking of Osgiliath more natural in the movie.
I have only one thing to add: Sam, who apparently knows the book, says:
> "We should not even be here"
Hear hear.
It's really weird however that in some parts, Jackson goes at length to be very faithful to the book, almost in an unnecessary way. Yet in most places he decides to venture far away from what Tolkien wrote or suggested, making it into a pretty mixed bag.
Not only missing the Scouring of the Shire was bad, it was essential in Tolkien's philosophy of life (which is essential Christian at core). You can do good, but nothing guarantees that you will be rewarded for it, and the Scouring of the Shire is a stark reminder of that.
Instead, Jackson went for a Disney(TM) Happy End. Seriously?
Let's not forget Jackson is also to thank for Gandalf tackling Pippin with his staff when he finally grows up and tries to act like a responsible adult in front of Denethor as he tells about Boromir's death. That must have been the worst thing in the whole trilogy. This is exactly the opposite of how Gandalf reacts in the book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5OxGHBMFEo
Aside from that, Jackson has a weird tendency to make everything look overtly visual instead of suggesting things. Theoden is "possessed" by Sauron, not by some kind of magical spell (that makes his beard change size!), but because of Wormtongue's ill influence over him. That's it!
In the same line, The Mouth of Sauron is represented by a character whose Mouth is the only thing visible from his face, and overtly large and dirty. This does not make sense. The Mouth of Sauron is not litterally the ugly mouth of some kind of demon, it is simply... a spokesperson. It's really tiring as he does this over, and over again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoZxdS5K8E4
It seems to me that because you love the books so much you are applying and insanely high standard. Given where Fantasy has been before and since in movies what was achieved was almost unbelievable how amazing it is.
> In the movie, though, Faramir succumbs to the ring initially and leads the hobbits around for 15 minutes.
I think this is not even a bad change. It made Faramir and thus Boromir and the family dynamic a bigger part of the story. It gives it way more impact later when Faramir rides out.
> He did the same thing to even worse effect in The Hobbit.
In the Hobbit he had to jump in last minute and the studio forced it to 3 movies. There was no saving that thing. The only reason he directed it at all is because they might have pulled the movie from New Zealand.
> And yet with all that padding, he left out The Scouring of the Shire, one of the most important parts of the book.
There is just no practical way to include this even in the extended editions. The movie gets made endless jokes about how it has like 7 endings. It just not how movies work.
Remember even the cinematic editions had to cut so many things, it totally insane to think they could have added what amount to a whole other part at the end that can arguably be its own movie.
They have could have removed the 7 endings and just included that one instead. The other endings felt completely out of place anyway. That's typically the sign of a director that does not know what to include and to cut out.
Do you seriously want to stretch the hobbies in bar scene at the end into a what could be its own movie. It simply doesn't practically fit.
I feel like the lack of a hobbit mention here is sufficient evidence by itself that you weren't paying any attention at all.
Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy is a masterwork on all counts. Its lore, world building, character development, thematic juxtapositions, and pacing are all incredible. If it has one pronounced flaw, it's that the denouement could stand as a film on its own, but taking it away would be an injustice.
A film that failed to explain itself or the rules of its universe is Denis Villeneuve's Dune. That's the film to watch if you want a visual aid to the novels that has zero character development and is wholly a visual spectacle.
I disagree, but there are people who know what they're talking about that have similar thoughts.
But LOTR was ground breaking on many levels and will probably never be surpassed in my lifetime. Amazon is making a LOTR TV series that I thoroughly expect I'll hate every second of but I'd love to be wrong, though my faith in the film industry is exceedingly low.
My personal reduction of Jackson's realization of the novels is a group of hobbits looking at each other with an over-abundance of weariness. I sort of took it as the editor's sympathy with the audience.
Sure the movie that is closely based on one the most critically acclaimed and most sold stories in the world totally fails as story telling
> The movie lurched from set piece to set piece and lacked the connective tissue of storytelling.
Clearly you weren't paying attention.
> just elves walking
I really seems you were not paying attention.
> The world failed to establish any rules or explain itself adequately.
Its Epic Fantasy. Not like some modern fantasy where everything has to be based on quasi scientific rules. Not getting all the rules explained and discovering the world is part of the point.
> In the modern vernacular, the whole movie is payoffs with no setups.
I assume you were not watching the Extended Editions. There is plenty of setup there, but there is enough even in the cinematic edition (even when I haven't seen them in a decade).
Can you imagine how bad that would have been?
Sche wishard isch never late, Frodo Bagginsch, nor isch he early. He arrivesch preschischely when he meansch to.
The Enya-esque vocal texture, probably meant as a "this is ancient" short-hand, no longer tries my optic nerves, but I am comforted by anyone who responds more to pitch, timbre, and rhythm than the inanity of lyrics.
It is not that I do not care for lyrics. Problem is that most lyrics in songs is way out of that territory I would consider as decent.
On the other hand, consider the famous Lieder (or most librettos) -- the music is interesting and the text, less so (on its own). Exceptions abound, of course, but I've come to expect an inverse relationship between music and text in this way.
Exactly my expectation in average.
When I first saw these films in theatre as a teenager I remember being blown away by all of the CGI which was obviously great for its time, but nowadays I appreciate these and the other practical effects so much more. The various videos Adam Savage has made on his Tested channel with Weta Workshop are great as well, I can't recommend them enough to anyone interested in this type of thing.
The difference between LotR and the Hobbit couldn't be bigger. Hobbit is a gigantic trashy CGI shitfest. But what can be said is that the Hobbit was so terrible for so many other reasons that the CGI part didn't really matter.
And the romantic plots were in the book as well.
Are you sure you are not mixing up Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit?
No doubt variety.com don't want to remind us that their content sources (the studios) can be dodgy as whenever they can get away with it.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/business/media/the-lawsui...
Capitalism.
The article is "‘Lord of the Rings’ at 20: Why Peter Jackson’s Trilogy Was One of Hollywood’s Riskiest Projects Ever", not "Lord of the Rings: The Complete History of The Movie". How the money was distributed afterwards would be out of place.
The Jackson lawsuit was mentioned in this Variety article [1] on another legal case involving LotR. There the Jackson suit against New Line was on topic, and so it gets mentioned.
[1] https://variety.com/2017/film/news/lord-of-the-rings-lawsuit...