As films, I think Peter Jackson’s movies hold up amazingly well. so many battle shots I’ve seen brazenly imitated in just about every fantasy/military movie made since they came out. So many shots copied in just about every subsequent spec fx film, but more effective and fresh in LOTR.
Thoughts?
After having recently seen all 3 Extended versions again in the theater, I also think they hold up beautifully. I never thought I’d say this, but thank you Fathom Events for letting me experience these films again the way they were meant to be seen, on the BIG screen.
The only thing that doesn’t hold up, though totally understandable, is Gollum in Fellowship of the Ring. He doesn’t look anything like the Gollum of The Two Towers, but of course that’s because they weren’t finished with the look. The biggest difference is Gollum’s color, black in Fellowship, pale grey in TTT. If there’s one thing I’m surprised they didn’t go back and change for subsequent releases to match with the next two movies, it’s Gollum’s color. Everything else is perfect.
If they could go back and fix the the green smoke monster of death in ROTK, they’d be near perfect. That was a joke.
I am not surprised they have held up so well, and won’t be surprised in 30 years when people still say they hold up well.
I can vividly recall those three Decembers over three years, eagerly looking forward to see each installment and not being even slightly disappointed. I know there are tons of people here who will nitpick this film trilogy to death, but overall, it is a great film version of a sprawling, beloved epic book.
I bought the extended DVD set when it first came out, and at least once a year I will settle in, get comfy on the couch, and allow myself to be transported into Mr. Jackson’s excellent films.
To think that this relatively unknown director was able to get the financing, and do such an amazing job with difficult material, simultaneously filming them all, not knowing how the reaction would be - well, hats off, kudos, congrats and wow!
Watching Return of the King on TNT right now. I’ve seen all three so many times, I can just do something else with the TV on in the background and watch for my favorite scenes. Mr. Sali will walk through the room and say, “are you watching that AGAIN?” and I say, “give the people what they want and they will watch, bozo.”
They will hold up for decades to come, too.
I remember sitting in the theater before The Two Towers began and looking over to my friend and saying, “It’s rare that you can sit in a theater and know you are about to see a classic.”
I was right and I don’t think I’ve ever had that kind of assurance since(I saw Return of the King in the theater, but not opening day like that).
I always bought the extended versions, which came with a ticket to the next movie.
They hold up great. And thank the gods that these were made before 3-D became so popular!
Oh yes. I haven’t seen any of the recent rash of 3-D films, not one. I always get a headache watching 3-D, and resent having to pay extra for such a film.
Indeed, and that part is stupid in the book too. It is worse than unnecessary, it spoils the whole point of the arrival of the Rohirrim. We get all that build up (about half of the Two Towers), what is, IMHO, the best piece of bravura writing in the whole Tolkien oeuvre, when the Rohirrim arrive at Minas Tirith, and it all turns out to be virtually irrelevant because the Rohirrim don’t turn the tide of the battle after all, the “dead” do. Jackson would have done Tolkien a big favor by cutting the whole “paths of the dead” part out altogether. (He could have kept Tom Bombardil and the barrow wights, then!)
Amen to that!
I was working as an IT at a California University when I found the first teaser ever on the internet and all the techs in the room stopped to take a look.
And there was much rejoicing, the worst was the wait though.
I remember before the first movie came out, on some entertainment TV show, there was a seconds-long clip of the characters walking through the mountain pass. I actually got a chill down my spine and thought, after I see the whole trilogy, I think I could die happy.
Kinda sad, huh? But that’s exactly what I thought.
I remember the SAME clip. What stood out for me was Gimli’s “come get some, bitches!” line while he’s baring his ax, just before the monsters break through.
Its a little better in the book, since Aragon shows up with a living army instead of a dead one, and that army is less of an “instant win” button then the green slime army of the movie.
I remember seeing in theaters when Aragorn lays the smackdown on the head orc in FotR (Ghurz? I can’t remember what he was called). The whole audienced roared with applause. I can honestly say I’ve never been in a movie where the audience was so…emotionally invested with the plot. It was great!
I think what made the whole story great was that Tolkien presented a story that had a fate that was really up in the air- most stories are rather predicible ie good guy wins in the end, but the LotR trilogy really made it down to the wire that good would prevail, and it was more dumb luck than anything else.
I’m looking forward to seeing the Hobbit, but my worry is that it won’t have the same luster because its not as much of an ‘epic’ as the LotR trilogy was.
I remember being dragged (!) to Fellowship ten years ago. I had read the books. I liked them. But I remember thinking, and opining loudly, that no fucking movie could do a decent telling of this story. The story just wasn’t written for film. It was long, slow and dense.
I ate crow, that day. And I was happy to do so, and to apologize to all - this was a legitimately great film. Two Towers was great too, as was Return of the King.
It is pretty crazy, if you think about it, that Peter Jackson was able to so faithfully and lovingly turn these (admittedly dense) books into really great cinema. I mean, think about it - you have a written work that is dense with poetry and genealogy. And then you have a director that was best known at the time for “splatstick” horror films.
But full credit to him, Mr. Jackson pulled it off, and admirably so.
The only nitpick I have - I have the “director’s cut” or “extended edition” or whatever they call it on DVD. I’ve watched them all through.
The “added” scenes - none of them are bad, most of them are good. But watching them, I think the editor for the theatrical releases did their job well. Most of the “extended edition” scenes are good, not great. So I think that what was cut for the theatrical release was correct.
I’m a huge nerd with nothing but time, so I enjoy the “extended” scenes, but yeah, they’re less essential. Still good and enjoyable, but less essential.
You bite your tongue! The arrival of Aragorn with the re-enforcements from the South is one of the best moments in the entire book.
Fuck me, I get choked up every time I read that. My one great disappointment with the movies was that they lost that scene, and replaced it with out-takes from Dead Alive.
Well, the gift giving scene in Fellowship was pretty essential.
I should have said in my OP that I can nitpick the LOTR movies as adaptations with the best of them. plenty as a book-LOTR lover, there were plenty of things I didn’t like, in the 2nd and 3rd films, esp. However it amazes me how fresh they still seem when viewed purely from a film standpoint. I really believe they will continue to stand the test of time as classics. It’s been fun to read these comments.
If I could have added anything, after Frodo got on the last ship leaving, it should have been lightly raining. The ship moves out. Then, “the gray rain curtain of this world would roll back, turning to silver glass, to reveal white shores, and beyond a far green country under a swift sunrise”. (sniff-sorry, got something in my eye here).