The Lord of The Rings film trilogy, directed by Peter Jackson- retro review
What more can be said about these groundbreaking, multi-million dollar movies which brought the 20th century’s most beloved fictional story to the screen, bagging tonnes of Oscars along the way (including the first ever Best Picture trophy ever awarded to a fantasy or science fiction film)?
I recently rewatched the entire trilogy on DVD, after not seeing Return Of the King since the cinema four years ago. I have to say, several years on, the movies still stand tall as momentous cinematic achievements. The cinematography is truly breathtaking, the performances from the superb ensemble cast are exquisite, and the visual effects are marvellous. There is so much detail packed into these movies. You can tell how much effort was put into every aspect of the production. The sets, to the costumes, to the armour, is expertly handcrafted, and really makes you feel like you could just step inside Middle Earth as if it was as simple as popping out to the corner shop.
Andy Serkis as Gollum, is a brilliant, milestone performance. Even though Gollum is a CGI character, Serkis was present on the set wearing state of the art motion capture equipment. He did far more than merely supply the voice for this character. Gollum is incredible, and is the first ever truly convincing CG character (Jar Jar Binks in 1999’s Star Wars: Episode One The Phantom Menace, was achieved using a similar technology, using an actor’s movements to digitise a later CGI creation, but the results were far less successful, and infamous!), in my view. He should have been nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar. As it stands, Ian McKellan was the only performer nominated for such an award, in recognition of his near-perfect portrayal of Gandalf the Grey/White. He is precisely the way I imagined him in the books, and he damn well deserved to win that award. I can’t even remember who did actually win that year. Isn’t it funny how the Academy is so out of touch that they award people for things that are forgotten years later, yet the truly famous performances are ignored? (Alec Guinness, similarly, lost out at the 1977 Academy Awards for his immortal role as Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars IV: A New Hope)
Lord of the Rings translated very well from Oxford professor (and Old English scholar) J.R.R Tolkien’s legendary novels to the silver screen, despite people’s protestations that such a text would prove impossible to adapt for the celluloid medium. Certain...omissions were necessary, of course, for the sake of expediency. Seriously, if every little nook and cranny of Tolkien’s dense descriptive writing, and every extended passage of Beowulf-inspired Old English poetry survived into Jackson’s film, we would have been sitting there for far longer than three hours. It would have consisted of a twelve hour odyssey!
The filmmakers did a remarkable job, considering the weight of expectation upon their shoulders. For over fifty years now, these books have been cherished by all manner of people across the globe, inspiring arguably every fantasy author who put pen to paper since (such as Terry Pratchett, Robert Jordan, and David Eddings); musicians (70s progressive rock groups Rush, Yes, and Led Zeppelin are besotted by the work of Tolkien. Zep have at least four songs which explicitly make reference to Mordor, Gollum, Sauron, the Misty Mountains, and the Nazgul. Yes’s keyboardist Rick Wakeman released a solo record comprising material based on Frodo’s adventures; and there are European death metal bands called Cirith Ungol and Barad Dur, I think); and even videogame developers (Blizzard’s World of Warcraft franchise is just LOTR wearing different trousers, essentially). You could say that the phenomenal financial success of this movie trilogy paved the way for the reams of historical epics and fantasy films gracing our cinema screens now. We might never have seen the likes of the recent Chronicles of Narnia film adaptation if it were not for the critical and commercial triumph of LOTR. (Incidentally, C.S Lewis and Tolkien were acquaintances, as both writers lived in Oxford at a contemporaneous time period)
Not all fans of the book will be smitten by Jackson’s blandishments. The movies take more of a guided tour approach to the books, rather than following every word verbatim. They assume that audiences are already familiar with the events of the text, and simply get on with the story, devoting as little time to revealing background info or plot exposition as possible. As a result of this, some newcomers might be daunted at the sheer vastness of the Middle Earth universe. Conversely, Tolkien diehards might be dissatisfied with Jackson’s liberties taken with the story (the elves were not present at the Battle of the Hornburg at all; it was in fact Glorfindel, not Arwen Evenstar who rescued Frodo Baggins at the Ford; Tom Bombadil is absent altogether from the screenplay, and the entire Scouring of the Shire coda is controversially scrapped). Jackson has tried hard to make these films accessible to both the casual audience and Tolkien fanatics. And he largely succeeded in winning over both camps. I do not know if Tolkien himself would be impressed with the adaptation if he were with us today. He did not seem keen on the earlier animated version of the 1970s. His son, Chris Tolkien (who recently posthumously published some of his late father’s manuscripts as The Children Of Hurin) went on record as saying he ‘didn’t mind them at all’.
The movies are a labour of love. The entire cast and crew spent two years living in Wellington, New Zealand, and one really must congratulate everyone involved for their dedication to, and passion for, this epic undertaking. The cast are uniformly excellent. Jackson was wise in picking faces which were very recognisable amongst cult circles, but at the same time, none of them ‘big’ enough to override the film and cause it to be marketed as a star vehicle. Some of the talent he found were newcomers, whose star has risen since the release of LOTR (like Orlando Bloom, discovered just as he was finishing up drama school).
It’s a hell of a great cast: Ian McKellan (the renowned Shakespearian thespian, who recently brought an RSC season of both the Bard’s King Lear and Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull to Melbourne, Australia; who here lends immense gravitas and prestige to every line of dialogue he utters), Sean Bean (a fan favourite, as he always plays memorable villains, like Alec Trevalyn in 007’s Goldeneye, an Irish terrorist in Patriot Games, and he is also well known as Sharpe in the miniseries of that name), John Rhys Davies (best known as Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark), Hugo Weaving (Bangkok Hilton, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and most famously, The Matrix), movie legend Christopher Lee (famous as Dracula in the Hammer horror series of the 1950s, and later famous as Roger Moore’s Bond nemesis, the contract assassin, Scaramanga, the titular ‘Man with the Golden Gun’), Aussie actor David Wenham (Seachange, 300, Van Helsing), Oscar winner Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth, The Aviator, Notes on a Scandal), the list goes on and on. It’s one of the finest ensemble casts ever assembled. And all are on fine form.
It’s pretty hard to find fault with these movies, actually. They are the definitive movie trilogy, and perhaps the most complete fantasy or SF trilogy since the original Star Wars saga; encapsulating far more emotional scope than just boys own adventure. It includes themes of obsession, love, hate, beauty, despair, genocide, corruption, the list continues ad infinitum. Any future epic movie productions have to step up to the challenge presented by these ones. It’s going to be quite hard to top them. The films work on several levels. I really love movies like that. Ones which have the potential to speak to different people, to attract different people for different reasons. There is beauty, as well as destruction. The natural vistas of New Zealand are absolutely stunning to look at. The films are somewhat of a tourist advertisement for New Zealand. The elven characters, and their cities, supply yet more beauty. The sets of Rivendell and Lothlorien are gorgeous. And the elves are a very fair, very beautiful race of people. All of the actors who play elves are presented in a very shiny, natural kind of light, and look like they wouldn’t get muddy if you dunked them headfirst in a vat of sludge.
I haven’t even mentioned the soundtrack yet. Howard Shore’s audio compliment to the visual imagery is the perfect marriage of sound and vision. The score is heartbreaking yet uplifting. I am firmly of the belief that sound and music are of integral importance to film making. Can you imagine the Imperial Star Destroyer majestically swooping over Tatooine at the beginning of Star Wars without John Williams’ inimitable pulse-raising musical accompaniment? Can you imagine Janet Leigh driving down that dark highway, noticing the ominous neon sign outside the Bates Motel without being accompanied by Bernard Herrmann’s chilling violin overture? Howard Shore stated that his objective was to deliver a body of music that truly did justice to the poetry of Tolkien’s words, to be as beautiful as the source material was. And, blimey, hasn’t he half done that? He assembled a choir of singers who chanted in ancient Sindarin, for god’s sake (the language of the Elf folk). The score is, needless to say, flawless. Shore worked in league with divas Enya, Emiliana Torrini, and former Eurythmics chanteuse Annie Lennox to deliver the end credits theme songs for Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and Return of the King respectively. I couldn’t have asked for a better soundtrack.
The movies are a milestone in not only genre filmmaking, but the motion picture industry as a whole. They have to be respected for what they’ve done. The Academy Awards are more often than not, staid, predictable, and out of touch with the audience’s wishes. But even they recognised the achievements of Jackson and his team. Return of the King is currently tied for the world record for the most awards won by a movie (11 Oscars, putting it in the same league as Ben Hur and Titanic). It was a clean sweep. ROTK won in every single category for which it was nominated at the 2004 ceremony. I remember that I was thrilled at the time, that the Academy finally considered a genre picture worthy of the highest Best Picture accolade (after snubbing them for years. Star Wars was beaten by Annie Hall in 77 for the Best Picture gong, and Raiders of the Lost Ark was rudely cast aside in favour of Chariots of Fire at the 82 Oscars). LOTR really raised the bar for movie makers, not only in its own genre, but across all genres. The movies will be much imitated but never beaten for years to come.
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